Outlook 98 and XP SP2

[Paul Webster]

I know that this is a long-shot ... but I have recently had to rebuild
my XP machine and now find that I can no longer install Outlook 98.
I had it running fine previously - indeed for many years
I know that it is no longer supported by MS..
I have some very large .pst files that I would still like to access.

The "Active Setup" fails - without doing much and seemingly without
trying to access the Internet (no firewall prompts).
I can see that the URLs that it would go to, no longer exist on the MS
site but I think that the installation files that I have are a
complete self-contained set (with IE4 etc).

I guess that I could try to unpick the setup files or go out and buy a
more recent version of Outlook - but before I go down those routes ...
is this something that someone else has also solved and is willing to
explain how?

Searching the Internet reveals a couple of other people who have hit
similar problem - but I have not found a solution.

 

[BillR]

The files were available for some time after Outlook 98 was released but I
doubt they are now. You can check directly with Microsoft if you like. That
worked for a while after they were removed from public download but might
not now.

You might be able to grab an old Outlook 98 CD off someone somewhere - maybe
EBay. I know I have one but it is in storage a long way away.

 

[Paul Webster]

The files were available for some time after Outlook 98 was released but I
doubt they are now. You can check directly with Microsoft if you like. That
worked for a while after they were removed from public download but might
not now.

You might be able to grab an old Outlook 98 CD off someone somewhere - maybe
EBay. I know I have one but it is in storage a long way away.

I do have all of the files (i.e. the contents of the CD). The complete
Outlook 98 was given away on a cover CD for a computing magazine some
years ago.
I suspect that the problem is that the "Active Setup" process is now
broken - either by something in XP SP2 (or subsequent fixes) or
because the URLs that the Active Setup goes to to check things has
gone away.
However, since I didn't get a firewall message saying that it was
trying to gain access to the Internet then I suspect that it is
something in XP itself that has prevented it.
I was able to use the same copy of the CD files to install on XP SP1
in the past

Paul.

"Paul Webster" <[email protected]>
wrote in
message news:[email protected]...

 

[BillR]

If something in XP has broken it then you won't get any fix unless something
else that is current is broken.

 

[Paul Webster]

The machine that I was trying to get this to work on finally gave up the ghost (the reason that I was going through the
re-install in the first place was because of hardware problems).
So - I went out and bought a cheap Vista machine ... and it installs on there.
There are a couple of problems with DLLs but basically it is working well enough for me to be able to access the .pst
file with a few GB of email. So that is somewhat of a relief.

Now to work out how to migrate the content. I expect it will be through a more recent Outlook since Vista Windows Email
can't get to it (reports a MAPI problem).

Paul