Accounts Backup/Restore

[G.Mester]

Since I plan to reinstall my OS and reinstall the Office package what is the
procedure to backup/restore all account settings in Outlook 2007?

 

[VanguardLH]

Since I plan to reinstall my OS and reinstall the Office package what is the
procedure to backup/restore all account settings in Outlook 2007?

Use the "Save My Settings Wizard" utility that is included with Office
and is added as a shortcut under the start menu.

 

[Gordon]

Use the "Save My Settings Wizard" utility that is included with Office
and is added as a shortcut under the start menu.

Not in Office 2007, unfortunately. In 2007 there is NO easy way to back up
account settings.

 

[G.Mester]

Isn't it a matter of exporting portions of the Registry? Which part exactly?

 

[G.Mester]

Yes sure, did u look there yourself?

Use the "Save My Settings Wizard" utility that is included with Office
and is added as a shortcut under the start menu.

 

[VanguardLH]

Yes sure, did u look there yourself?

I didn't waste my money on versions of Office that afford me no
functionality beyond what my current version already gives me (and more
than I want). I'm not well-trained by marketing types that con you into
thinking you need to always get the latest version or replace what is
working with an unknown that they claim is "better" (for them, not
necessarily for you). Fact is, I won't be buying (out of my pocket)
another version of Office. Instead I would go to OpenOffice.

The wizard was available in Office XP. I figured it would still be
available in Office 2007, or a similar feature provided for exporting
all the settings. Yeah, guess "better" turned out to be less than what
was available before. Another reason not to upgrade.

Somewhere in the registry are the MAPI data that you want to export.
Tried searching the registry yet on the strings used in the e-mail
accounts that you have defined, like on the server name or the account
name? I found it before in the registry by searching on my e-mail
address.

 

[G.Mester]

I didn't waste my money on versions of Office that afford me no
functionality beyond what my current version already gives me (and more
than I want). I'm not well-trained by marketing types that con you into
thinking you need to always get the latest version or replace what is
working with an unknown that they claim is "better" (for them, not
necessarily for you). Fact is, I won't be buying (out of my pocket)
another version of Office. Instead I would go to OpenOffice.

The wizard was available in Office XP. I figured it would still be
available in Office 2007, or a similar feature provided for exporting
all the settings. Yeah, guess "better" turned out to be less than what
was available before. Another reason not to upgrade.

Somewhere in the registry are the MAPI data that you want to export.
Tried searching the registry yet on the strings used in the e-mail
accounts that you have defined, like on the server name or the account
name? I found it before in the registry by searching on my e-mail
address.

Yes, sure except in OL07 the account info is stored encrypted in the
Registry FYI

 

[VanguardLH]

Yes, sure except in OL07 the account info is stored encrypted in the
Registry FYI

Then I would use a registry monitor, like InstallWatch, to check what
registry entries got changed when I updated an e-mail account defined in
Outlook. However, if they are encrypted, I suspect that they are
worthless under a different instance of Windows which would have a
different RSA seed value. If they got encrypted for security reasons
then that probably includes not allowing a registry to be usurped by
another instance of Windows. After some Googling, it appears some users
that had service contracts with Microsoft and called them were told that
there is no way to export the account settings.

There are 3rd party tools for exporting Outlook's account data. ABF
Outlook Backup is one of them. I've heard that it won't work Outlook
2007 (http://www.outlookbackup.com/backup-outlook-2007.html), so
Microsoft screwed over everyone in that version. Guess Microsoft
figures the 5 minutes for you to create a new account and enter the
server name and your login credentials isn't worth the ability to export
and import that data. I almost suspect that a plug-in to Outlook would
be needed to have it extract the unencrypted information that Outlook
can get from the registry and then save that unencrypted data. So you
lept forward in versions but lost functionality.

So I'd suggest just writing down the account details, like server name,
port, whether SMTP authentication was used, etc. and then let the user
run OL2007 and enter the login credentials (and save them) when they get
prompted.

 

[Diane Poremsky {MVP}]

you can export the messaging subsystem key but unless the computers are
identical, you're better off making a new profile from scratch - moving them
between machines is almost a surefire way of corrupting the profile.









** Please include your Outlook version, Account type, and Windows Version
when requesting assistance **

 

[Diane Poremsky {MVP}]

you can still find enough to id the keys - and a quickie Google search will
identify the path, so you don't need to search the registry.

http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/ghosts.htm is one of many pages that tell
you where to look for the profile.










** Please include your Outlook version, Account type, and Windows Version
when requesting assistance **

 

[Jason Dunn]

In 2007 there is NO easy way to back up account settings.

And BOY does that ever piss me off! You can tell the Microsoft developers
don't grasp that people don't all have one Exchange account and that's
it....they're seriously ignorant about how people use Outlook 2007 with
multiple accounts (or it sure seems that way).

Jason Dunn
www.digitalhomethoughts.com

 

[VanguardLH]

you can still find enough to id the keys - and a quickie Google search will
identify the path, so you don't need to search the registry.

http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/ghosts.htm is one of many pages that tell
you where to look for the profile.

But, if as Mester says, they are encrypted, would saving those encrypted
registry keys to a .reg file and then trying to import then into a
different instance of Windows actually work? I would suspect the RSA
seed is different in the other instance of Windows so it could not
decrypt the encrypted registry values.