Help needed ref upgrade from Outlook 2000 to 2007

[Guest]

Office 2007 arrived today and I have just finished upgrading my existing
Office 2000 installation. Outlook 2000 was previously set up with lots of
custom folders and lots of rules to automatically place many of my incoming
emails into these folders. My outlook.pst file was also in a non-standard
location (in an MS Outlook folder within My Documents).

When I opened Outlook 2007 I saw none of my previous custom folders, got
several warnings about rules problems and also noted that it was using a new
PST file. I stumbled through what I thought was the appropriate procedure to
point Outlook 2007 at my old PST file and restarted the program, but still no
custom folders....

What do I need to do to restore my Outlook 2007 installation to a clone of
my previous Outlook 2000 setup?

David

 

[Guest]

Problem update:
===========
Actually, my custom folders ARE present in my new Outlook 2007 setup (after
changing it to use my old PST file). What was confusing me is that my eyes
were initially drawn to the highlighted Inbox folder, which was no longer
immediately adjacent to lots of my custom folders. However, I have just
realised that there are two Inbox folders! My old Inbox is still there, one
notch down the folder hierarchy, while the new one is more obvious. Some
other standard folders are also duplicated. Is this perhaps because Outlook
2007 initially opened using a new PST file before I reconfigured it to use
the old one?

I'm deliberately playing around with Outlook 2007 with my broadband
connection disabled as I don't want new mail going to the wrong places, so I
don't yet know which of my 'Inboxes' is the active one!

Any guidance to help in clarifying where I go from here would be much
appreciated.

David

 

[Guest]

I believe Outlook 2007 is supposed to only be compatible with Outlook 2003
PSTs.

However, in Outlook 2007 try the following:

Start Outlook 2007. Click File>New>Outlook Data File.
Select "Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders File (.pst)" and click OK. Browse
to the folder where you'd like to create it (or accept the default). Give
it a file name (or accept the default). Click OK. Give it a display name
(or accept the default). Click OK. If that works, then you should be able
to use your Outlook 2000 PST.

I don't use Outlook 2007 yet so I haven't tested this but this works with
the Outlook 2003 PST compatibility issue. Good luck and post back to say how
you made out.

 

[Guest]

Hi Kathleen,
I don't quite see how your suggestion to create a new PST file addresses my
need to access all the years of email data, etc, in my old PST file. Please
clarify the procedure in more detail (as best you can from your Outlook 2003
experience). In particular, I don't understand the relationship between the
new PST file (which I am forced to save under a name and location of my
choice) and the old PST file. Is some sort of merging of these files
required?

Thanks,
David

 

[Guest]

Once you complete those steps, I believe if you use File > Open and browse to
your Outlook 2000 PST you should be able to open it. If not, please post
back.

 

[Guest]

Kathleen,
I have never had a problem opening my Outlook 2000 PST from Outlook 2007 -
it's what I see after opening it that is the issue. After going through your
recommended procedure, nothing has changed. I still have two 'Personal
Folders' folders, with duplicated Drafts, Deleted Items, Inbox, Outbox, etc.
Indications are that it's only the new versions of these folders that are
active (I sent an email to myself and it only went into the new version of
the Outbox). All my old emails are still accessible in the 'other' Personal
Folders folder.

I think my symptoms are the result of letting Outlook 2007 initiate itself
with a new PST file. The subsequent opening of my old PST file seems to be
adding that data to the newly created setup - rather than totally replacing
it. Is there some way to get Outlook 2007 to open from scratch using the old
PST?

David

 

[Guest]

If you performed an upgrade to Outlook 2007, it's recommended that you create
a new profile.

 

[Guest]

Not sure I remember what an Outlook profile is. Is that another way of saying
that it is a good thing to let Outlook 2007 initialise with a fresh PST file
before pointing it at my old PST? If so, it still leaves the question of how
I unscramble my folder duplication problem. How can I make it use my old
Inbox folder, etc? Will I then be able to delete the redundant new folders?

David

 

[Guest]

Create a new profile: http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/newprofile.htm

 

[Brian Tillman]

Problem update:
===========
Actually, my custom folders ARE present in my new Outlook 2007 setup
(after changing it to use my old PST file). What was confusing me is
that my eyes were initially drawn to the highlighted Inbox folder,
which was no longer immediately adjacent to lots of my custom
folders. However, I have just realised that there are two Inbox
folders! My old Inbox is still there, one notch down the folder
hierarchy, while the new one is more obvious. Some other standard
folders are also duplicated. Is this perhaps because Outlook 2007
initially opened using a new PST file before I reconfigured it to use
the old one?

Yes. The default when you install Outlook 2007 is to get a new mail profile
and a new PST. Now, what I'd do if I were in your shoes, is to copy any
non-default folders from the OL 2000 PST to the OL 20076 PST and copy the
contents of the default folders from the old folders to their corresponding
new folders. This will put everything you have into the more capable
Unicode PST. You can then remove the old PST and save it for backup
purposes, if you wish.

 

[Guest]

Brian,
Having just succeeded in creating a new profile that defaulted to using my
old PST (thanks, Kathleen, for the helpful link), I was about to ask about
the warning message I got about reduced Unicode functionality.

Your post answered my question before I asked it. You must be psychic!

Thanks,
David

 

[Brian Tillman]

Your post answered my question before I asked it. You must be psychic!

Psycho, maybe, but not psychic.