Re-initiate Onenote 2003 Note Conversion to 2007 Format

[Tom Huseby]

Do do I get Onenote 2007 to re-initiate the conversion of One Note files from
Onenote 2003 to Onenote 2007? I installed Onenote 2007, the uninstalled it
and went back to Onenote 2003. When I tried to go back to Onenote 2007 it
would not convert my notebook the second time. Please help!

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Tom,

Have you tried closing & reopening the notebook? This should trigger a
conversion.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Tom Huseby]

I need to convert my whole "My Notebook" directory... all my notes
everything. This happened the first time I upgraded to Onenote 2007... When
I reverted back to 2003... then back to 2007 again it would not do the full
conversion again.

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha Tom,

Did it covert it the first time? How did you convert them BACK to 2003 format?

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[Patrick Schmid]

You can simply opening each folder in My Notebook as an individual
notebook and it should be converted.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Tom Huseby]

For some reason nothing I do will make OneNote 2007 do the initial conversion
of my OneNote 2003 notebook that it did the first time I upgraded. I even
removed all the registry entries for OneNote 2007/2003 and reinstalled 2003,
then 2007... It must set something in my 2003 notebook that says that it's
already been converted to 2007. It leave sthe "My Notebook" folder intact of
course and creates the new "OneNote Notebooks" folder.

Anyway, I can't just simply convert each OneNote file as OneNote 2007
doesn't recognize the subdirectories in my "My Notebook" directory as
individual groups... I have to recreate the whole structure.

Unless I'm able to somehow convince OneNote 2007 that it is upgrading
OneNote 2003 for the first time and do the intial migration to OneNote 2007 I
will have to spend hours doing it manually.

There must be some switch I can set or command I can run to get OneNote 2007
to run the initial migration of notes to OneNote 2007 again. Anybody out
there know how I can manually intiate this process?

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha Tom,

O.K., but that doesn't answer my question...how did you convert them BACK
to 2003 format after you upgraded the first time? (I am leading up to something
here)

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[Tom Huseby]

OK I'll explain. The first time I upgraded from OneNote 2003 to 2007 it
converted all of my notes to 2007 format and put them in the "OneNote
Notebooks" folder. It left everything in my "My Notebook" folder intact.
When I uninstalled 2007 I didn't have to back-convert anything, I just
deleted the "OneNote Notebooks" folder and installed OneNote 2003 again. It
correctly saw my notebook @ "My Notebook" directory and worked great. But
when I tried to reinstall 2007 again, it completely ignored the fact that I
had 2003 installed, ignored my existing "My Notebook" directory and came up
with an empty notebook as if I installed it w/o any prior notes.

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Do you have the "OneNote Notebooks" folder still in your Recycle Bin? If
yes, restore it.
OneNote 2007 stores the list of open notebooks at the following regkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\OneNote\OpenNotebooks
Maybe that helps you.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Tom Huseby]

Thanks for the advice. It was too big to move to the recycle bin ;(

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha Tom,

Hmmm. Well, I think Patrick's probably right. I think you're going to have
to open each notebook individually and rebuild the structure. I wish I had
a better answer than that (and I will ask around) but I think you've stumbled
upon a scenario we weren't counting on.

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[Ilya Koulchin]

Do do I get Onenote 2007 to re-initiate the conversion of One Note files from
Onenote 2003 to Onenote 2007? I installed Onenote 2007, the uninstalled it
and went back to Onenote 2003. When I tried to go back to Onenote 2007 it
would not convert my notebook the second time. Please help!

Not 100% sure, but try the following:
1: Shut down all OneNotes
2: Make sure your 2003 notebook is in the default location (My
Documents\My Notebook)
3: Remove "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\OneNote\FirstBoot12Beta2"
4: Remove
"HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\OneNote\Options\Save\Notebook Root"
5: Delete the OneNote Notebooks folder (My Documents\OneNote Notebooks)
6: Boot OneNote 2007, and it should offer to migrate your notes again

Ilya

 

[Ilya Koulchin]

Not 100% sure, but try the following:
1: Shut down all OneNotes
2: Make sure your 2003 notebook is in the default location (My
Documents\My Notebook)
3: Remove "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\OneNote\FirstBoot12Beta2"
4: Remove
"HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\OneNote\Options\Save\Notebook Root"
5: Delete the OneNote Notebooks folder (My Documents\OneNote Notebooks)
6: Boot OneNote 2007, and it should offer to migrate your notes again

Missed just one thing: somewhere between 1 and 6, you also need to
delete the OneNote 2007 offline cache. It's at "C:\Documents and
Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\OneNote\12.0". Delete (or rename)
OneNoteOfflineCache.onecache and OneNoteOfflineCache_Files.

 

[Patrick Schmid]

As Ilya didn't mention it: Ilya is from the Microsoft OneNote team

Patrick Schmid