OL2007 rules result in "Can't move ..." error.

[BudV]

Vista Home Premium SP1. OL2007 (12.0.4518.1014)

I just re-keyed a slew of rules that ran nicely under OL2003. Under OL2007
I get mostly errors that say "Can't move ... to ... folder", but the error
shows no other explanation of what it's objecting to.

Is the reason available to me elsewhere?

 

[BudV]

MS Help led me through a few steps and I found that one of my two personal
folders was not associated with a .pdf file. I have no idea how that's
possible. Now I intend to create another personal file and copy all the
subfolders from the old one to the new one. Anybody want to stop me before
I do this?

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

MS Help led me through a few steps and I found that one of my two personal
folders was not associated with a .pdf file.

Do you mean PST file? Outlook folders are never associated with "pdf" files.

I have no idea how that's possible. Now I intend to create another personal
file and copy all the subfolders from the old one to the new one. Anybody
want to stop me before I do this?

Open each rule that specifies a folder and reselect the folder, makeing sure
it's a folder in your existing PST(s).

 

[BudV]

Sorry about the .pdf error (a senior moment!). Of course I meant .pst.

I did what you said, and I wasn't surprised to find that they all passed the
test, because that's how I specified them in the first place -- by clicking
them in a browse, not by keystroking.

There are some symptoms that I would like you to respond to:
1) I have two personal folders, call them K and R (the initials are mnemonic
for me). If I click Tools>Account Settings>Data Files, I'll see them both,
and everything looks kosher. Now, if I go to the navigation pane for Mail
and click Personal folders>Properties>Advanced for R, the file name shows up
as expected; but if I do the same for K, I get "The operation failed. An
object could not be found." This is the symptom that worries me the
most -- I suspect that it is key to not being able to move messages to K's
subfolders..

2) Sometimes when I get back to the PC and open Outlook and the rules, I'll
find some of them unchecked, even though I left them all checked. Is
Outlook trying to tell me something by doing this?

3) While testing my rules chaos, I disable "scheduled send/receives" as well
as "send immediately when connected", in order to keep the environment as
stable as possible. I still get a send/receive when I close out of Outlook.
I don't see where I can disable that.

4) The send/receive action shows an "Outlook Send/Receive Progress" box,
which includes a checkbox for "Don't show this box during Send/Receive." A
check there hasn't done any good -- for *years*.

Thanks for the help.

Bud

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

There are some symptoms that I would like you to respond to:
1) I have two personal folders, call them K and R (the initials are mnemonic
for me). If I click Tools>Account Settings>Data Files, I'll see them both,
and everything looks kosher. Now, if I go to the navigation pane for Mail
and click Personal folders>Properties>Advanced for R, the file name shows up
as expected; but if I do the same for K, I get "The operation failed. An
object could not be found." This is the symptom that worries me the
most -- I suspect that it is key to not being able to move messages to K's
subfolders..

Which, if either, of these two PSTs is your delivery location? What type(s)
of accounts are you using?

2) Sometimes when I get back to the PC and open Outlook and the rules, I'll
find some of them unchecked, even though I left them all checked. Is
Outlook trying to tell me something by doing this?

How did you connect these two PSTs to your mail profile? If you dropped one
of them on top of another PST of the same name, that could explain the issues.
If what you describe were to happen to me, I'd start with a new mail profile
and reconnect both PSTs via the Mail applet in Controll Panel.

3) While testing my rules chaos, I disable "scheduled send/receives" as well
as "send immediately when connected", in order to keep the environment as
stable as possible. I still get a send/receive when I close out of Outlook.
I don't see where I can disable that.

Press Alt-Ctrl-S. You'll see a box labeled "Perform a sendd/receive when
exiting" there.

4) The send/receive action shows an "Outlook Send/Receive Progress" box,
which includes a checkbox for "Don't show this box during Send/Receive." A
check there hasn't done any good -- for *years*.

Works perfectly for me. This, too, suggests a new profile is in order
(although I don't know that that particular setting is in the registry, it
wouldn't surprise me).

 

[BudV]

FWIW, let me give you a little history on this situation. My daughter,
Holly, used to run both Outlook 2003 (OL) and Outlook Express (OE). OE was
social stuff and OL was her alternative medicine stuff. She liked OL
better, and didn't like the fact that contacts were divided betrween the two
handlers. She wanted to combine everything into OL, while maintaining the
split for messages, but combining the contacts, and she didn't want separate
profiles (didn't like exiting and re-entering to switch.) OE had two
accounts: H.Kastl and Kastls (thus the K mnemonic), and OL had RemedyMe and
Remedy.Me (the R mnemonic). I don't remember how I did it, but I set up a
profile with the two .pst files and I merged the contacts. The two .pst
files are represented in the Navigation Pane as personal folders with a slew
of subfolders. Each has its own Inbox, Outbox, Sent Items, and Junk Mail;
although -- and I hope this is the answer to your first question about
delivery location -- only those in the R-folders are active. *

I set up rules into four groups, one for each account, with every rule in
each group using the "through the ___ account" to distinguish the group from
the other three. The two K groups used the same logic, so they were
duplicates except for the account name. The same applied to the two R
groups, but with different logic. The rules emptied the "real" Inbox, and if
no other destination was determined, the messages were sent to R-Inbox or
K-Inbox. Messages that didn't pass the logic testing were deleted,
terminating rules processing. (In the current effort, I've changed that so
that the messages are sent to a folder called Limbo, and Holly is supposed
to examine any that shows up there to determine its disposition.) This all
worked fine under OL2003. I would like to see it work under OL2007.

-----------------------------

The four accounts are POP/SMTP type. The two .pst files have different
names, although each is represented by (some kind of) folder in the
Navigation Pane called Personal Folders. For identification, one is
followed by a dummy folder called "_REMEDYME folders", and the other has one
called "_KASTLS folders".

* Account Settings has all four accounts going to the same .pst file. If
all I wanted was a simple four-way split, this would handle it nicely and I
wouldn't need rules. Unfortunately, there's a bunch of logic involved.

Thanks for the Ctrl-Alt-S shortcut. Of course, I had seen it before with
Tools>Options>Mail Setup>Send/Receive. I just wasn't paying attention.

I'm going to set up a new profile, although I'll have to comb the help
system to see how. I'll be a very happy fella if it results in an
error-free operation. Wish me luck.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

FWIW, let me give you a little history on this situation. My daughter,
Holly, used to run both Outlook 2003 (OL) and Outlook Express (OE). OE was
social stuff and OL was her alternative medicine stuff. She liked OL
better, and didn't like the fact that contacts were divided betrween the two
handlers. She wanted to combine everything into OL, while maintaining the
split for messages, but combining the contacts, and she didn't want separate
profiles (didn't like exiting and re-entering to switch.) OE had two
accounts: H.Kastl and Kastls (thus the K mnemonic), and OL had RemedyMe and
Remedy.Me (the R mnemonic). I don't remember how I did it, but I set up a
profile with the two .pst files and I merged the contacts. The two .pst
files are represented in the Navigation Pane as personal folders with a slew
of subfolders. Each has its own Inbox, Outbox, Sent Items, and Junk Mail;
although -- and I hope this is the answer to your first question about
delivery location -- only those in the R-folders are active. *

It doesn't, exactly. In Outlook 2003, click Tools>E-mail Accounts>Next. The
delivery location is specified in the "Deliver new e-mail to the following
location" drop-down at the bottom left. In Outlook 2007, click Tools>Account
Settings>Data Files tab and examine which is marked as default.

I set up rules into four groups, one for each account, with every rule in
each group using the "through the ___ account" to distinguish the group from
the other three. The two K groups used the same logic, so they were
duplicates except for the account name. The same applied to the two R
groups, but with different logic. The rules emptied the "real" Inbox, and if
no other destination was determined, the messages were sent to R-Inbox or
K-Inbox. Messages that didn't pass the logic testing were deleted,
terminating rules processing. (In the current effort, I've changed that so
that the messages are sent to a folder called Limbo, and Holly is supposed
to examine any that shows up there to determine its disposition.) This all
worked fine under OL2003. I would like to see it work under OL2007.

Sorting incoming messages into separate folders in Outlook 2007 is much easier
than in Outlook 2003. In OL 2007, click Tools>Account Settings>E-mail
Accounts tab. Select each account and you can specifiy the Inbox for that
account. No incoming rule needed.

The four accounts are POP/SMTP type. The two .pst files have different
names, although each is represented by (some kind of) folder in the
Navigation Pane called Personal Folders. For identification, one is
followed by a dummy folder called "_REMEDYME folders", and the other has one
called "_KASTLS folders".

You can change the display name in the Navigation Pane so that it's clearer
what folders are associated with what. Right-click the root of the PST,
choose Properties, click Advanced and change the "Name" field to something
indicative of the PST. I often make it match the PST's file name, but it's
not necessary. The "Name" field is what the Nav pane uses for its display.

* Account Settings has all four accounts going to the same .pst file. If
all I wanted was a simple four-way split, this would handle it nicely and I
wouldn't need rules. Unfortunately, there's a bunch of logic involved.

With Outlook 2007, you can now perform that split.

 

[BudV]

Brian, I get a kick out of you! I keep trying to write so it looks as
though I'm not as drunk as some thinkle peep I am, but sometimes I just
don't make myself clear.

The delivery location is the R .pst file "... Outlook0412.pst"., the K .pst
file is "...Outlook52.pst

You told me twice about how OL2007 allows me to split to inboxes based on
the mail account. I tried to show that I understand that, but that I can't
take advantage of it because I need my logic to distribute messages to a
variety of folders, depending on sender name, subject and body text, the
presence of multiple addressees (that's my favorite), and other concerns;
and then it has to be duplicated because of the "two accounts per data file"
situation. As a grandfather-of-sorts of structured programming it hurts me
to say this, but I sure wish I had a GO TO in the rules!

Progress: I easily created a new profile, and connected to the two old .pst
files ("Data file" and ".pst file" are synonymous, aren't they?) I changed
the names, thank you. I was hoping to copy the four mail account setups
from somewhere, but couldn't find a way to do that, so I just re-created one
of them for testing. I really wanted to copy the rules, or at least connect
to the old .rmz(?) file, but I didn't know how. Instead, what came across
was a strange and useless subset of the old rules, with "(for other
machine)" appended to the rule comments.

I'm getting close. Would you bring me in for a safe landing, please?

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

Brian, I get a kick out of you! I keep trying to write so it looks as
though I'm not as drunk as some thinkle peep I am, but sometimes I just
don't make myself clear.

The delivery location is the R .pst file "... Outlook0412.pst"., the K .pst
file is "...Outlook52.pst

You told me twice about how OL2007 allows me to split to inboxes based on
the mail account.

Sorry. I didn't go back through the entire thread and obviously forgot when I
had said before.

I tried to show that I understand that, but that I can't take advantage of
it because I need my logic to distribute messages to a variety of folders,
depending on sender name, subject and body text, the presence of multiple
addressees (that's my favorite), and other concerns; and then it has to be
duplicated because of the "two accounts per data file" situation. As a
grandfather-of-sorts of structured programming it hurts me to say this, but
I sure wish I had a GO TO in the rules!

There aren't "two accounts per data file". Accounts are per-profile, so you
must have four accounts in the profile and two data files. The accounts don't
apply to specific files unless you change the Inbox of the particular
accounts.

Progress: I easily created a new profile, and connected to the two old .pst
files ("Data file" and ".pst file" are synonymous, aren't they?)
Yes.

I changed the names, thank you. I was hoping to copy the four mail account
setups from somewhere, but couldn't find a way to do that, so I just
re-created one of them for testing. I really wanted to copy the rules, or
at least connect to the old .rmz(?) file, but I didn't know how. Instead,
what came across was a strange and useless subset of the old rules, with
"(for other machine)" appended to the rule comments.

Account settings are contained in the mail profile in the registry and there's
no good way to export them. An rwz file won't exist unless you first export
the rules while in the old profile. That's what creates the rwz file.
Ordinarily rules are kept in a hidden folder in the delivery location data
file. Reconnecting that data file to your new profile as the delivery
location should make the rules available to you again. It's possible that
you'll need to visit each rule and reassign the variable values. Were I doing
it, I'd switch back to the old profile, export the rules, start Outlook with
the /cleanrules command switch, selecting the new profile as Outlook starts,
import the rules, and see of they work then.

 

[BudV]

You told me twice about how OL2007 allows me to split to inboxes based on

Sorry. I didn't go back through the entire thread and obviously forgot
when I had said before.

I apologize if I irritated you with that, but that was twice in the same
post.

There aren't "two accounts per data file". Accounts are per-profile, so
you must have four accounts in the profile and two data files. The
accounts don't apply to specific files unless you change the Inbox of the
particular accounts.

That's what I have: four accounts and two datas. I happen to have all four
accounts delivering to the same data file Inbox, which becomes the source
data for my set of rules.

Were I doing it, I'd switch back to the old profile, export the rules,
start Outlook with the /cleanrules command switch, selecting the new
profile as Outlook starts, import the rules, and see of they work then.

I did that and it looked promising, but after importing them I clicked
"Apply" and it warned me that some of my rules didn't have all the
parameters specified, or words to that effect. Sure enough, all of the
"through the specified account" entries lost their account values. Strange
things are happening.

Brian, my system has been a mess since it was butchered (during an
unsuccessful attempt to load OL2007 so that it could be accessed by a
standard user) with several Easy Assist sessions that tore through my
registry like a tornado. I'm afraid I know the answer to this before I ask
it, but I'll ask it anyway. Is there any possibillity that I could pay the
$49 to MS and have YOU take a look at my machine?

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I apologize if I irritated you with that, but that was twice in the same
post.

You didn't. Sometimes I ramble. My kids get tired of me repeating myself
too.

I did that and it looked promising, but after importing them I clicked
"Apply" and it warned me that some of my rules didn't have all the
parameters specified, or words to that effect. Sure enough, all of the
"through the specified account" entries lost their account values. Strange
things are happening.

Can you not reselect the accounts in those rules?

Brian, my system has been a mess since it was butchered (during an
unsuccessful attempt to load OL2007 so that it could be accessed by a
standard user) with several Easy Assist sessions that tore through my
registry like a tornado. I'm afraid I know the answer to this before I ask
it, but I'll ask it anyway. Is there any possibillity that I could pay the
$49 to MS and have YOU take a look at my machine?

I don't work for Microsoft and I really have no way of looking at your PC.
Sorry.

 

[BudV]

You didn't. Sometimes I ramble. My kids get tired of me repeating myself

too.

Wait untill you get to be an old man like me.

Can you not reselect the accounts in those rules?

When I tried, it only displayed a single account to choose from, not all
four.

I'm getting very close to wiping the slate clean, and re-installing. The
trouble is, there are complications. Toshiba installed Vista and Best Buy
did what they call optimizing. This was followed by my attempt to install
OL2007 with all its Windows Installer errors and registry failures. So we
really don't know where the "original error" occurred. The MS fix didn't
fix, and we were left with an unstable, vulnerable system full of files with
"sharing" in their file name, that won't do what it's supposed to be capable
of doing. I assume that the "sharing" files were left over from the Easy
Assist activity, which I think MS should have cleaned up.

Things are further complicated by the fact that Holly has an important
Homeopathy package that runs under XP, but not Vista. I'd be happy to
revert to an XP system, but Holly has discovered a few cute things about
Vista that she likes. (She's responsible for emotional issues, I'm
responsible for technological issues.) We could spend $500 on an upgrade to
the package that will run under Vista, or set up a dual-boot system, which
would chew up another huge chunk of hard drive space, which was destined to
be used for more photos. She has four kids ages 3 to 10, and 31GB of photos
so far, so there's more to come.

I think I liked mainframes better.

 

[BudV]

I'm re-posting this symptom because it may be a significant clue to you, and
I wanted to make sure it wasn't overlooked.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

Things are further complicated by the fact that Holly has an important
Homeopathy package that runs under XP, but not Vista. I'd be happy to
revert to an XP system, but Holly has discovered a few cute things about
Vista that she likes. (She's responsible for emotional issues, I'm
responsible for technological issues.) We could spend $500 on an upgrade to
the package that will run under Vista, or set up a dual-boot system, which
would chew up another huge chunk of hard drive space, which was destined to
be used for more photos. She has four kids ages 3 to 10, and 31GB of photos
so far, so there's more to come.

Hard drived are relatively cheap. You can get 300GB (or more) for about $80.
Put in a second disk drive (if a desktop) or a very large main disk with
sizable partitions (if a laptop) and set up that dual boot. That's what I
use. I've got things on the XP partition that won't run on Vista, but I like
Vista, so I use it in the other partition.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I'm re-posting this symptom because it may be a significant clue to you, and
I wanted to make sure it wasn't overlooked.

WHen you click Tools>Account Settings>E-mail Accounts, you see all four,
correct?

 

[BudV]

Okay, I'm embarrassed. Only the one showed up. I fixed that and, of
course, it now permits me to specify any of the four. Now I'm deep into the
Run Rules Now feature, and trying to zero in on the rules that aren't
behaving the way I think they should. These identical rules, as I've said
before, worked fine under OL2003. This means that what I'm likely to find
are (combinations of) rules that don't work the way they should.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to complain until I make this effort on a
clean machine, which this machine definitely is not. It's okay, though.
I've always felt that debugging was the most fun part of programming.

One other item. I switched to a new profile as you suggested, but lost the
addressee history that completes previously used e-addresses automatically.
Is that a file that can be imported/exported or something ?

 

[BudV]

You're encouraging! My 320GB hard drive dropped to 289 before I got it
home, and now it has 186 free space. I told you that Holly takes a lot of
pictures. My grandkids think that their mother's face is a big round shiny
glass lens.

I'll have to see what $$$'s are involved in installing a larger HDD (if it's
available), transferring the data across, and making it work. The $500
upgrade may not seem so bad by the time it all adds up.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

One other item. I switched to a new profile as you suggested, but lost the
addressee history that completes previously used e-addresses automatically.
Is that a file that can be imported/exported or something ?

In the folder %AppData%\Microsoft\Outlook will be a file whose name matches
the old Outlook mail profile and whose file type is .NK2. That's the cache of
names. Change its name to match the current profile (while Outlook is closed)
and it should work.