Importing Distribution Groups

[Matt]

I am running Outlook 2002 on a Windows XP PC with all relevant service
packs.

I used to download my email via POP3. Now that I am connected to an Exchange
server, I had to Reconfigure Mail Support and create a new Outlook profile.
I was able to import the .pst of the old profile into the new
Exchange-linked profile fine except for one thing. In Contacts, all contacts
and distribution groups imported, but when you open the distribution groups
all members have been removed. As I have many distribution groups with
hundreds of members, this will take much time to recreate. I've tried
re-importing the contacts folder but the same problem happens. When I open
the old profile, the distribution list still has its members. Why can't I
see them in the Exchange profile?

Thanks for any help.

 

[John]

Not really sure if this will work or not but I had a
similar problem just importing regular people into my
contacts. When your importig you get to a screen which
asks if you want to map custom fields, check to see if
maybe its missing in the custom field.

Good luck

 

[Andy]

I was having the same problem. I discovered that if I opened the PST,
i could then see all the members of my distribution lists on Exchange.
If I closed the PST and moved it from its location on my hard drive,
that broke the link to it and the problem was back. This tells us
that it has something to do with the members being linked to the PST.
I did a series of things that fixed this for me, but I imagine there
is a faster way to fix it.
I first opened up the distribution list on the Exchange server with
the PST loaded and from the actions menu forwarded it to myself. I
closed the PST and moved it to see if this helped. This appeared to
fix the problem, but when I tried to double-click on any of the
members of the distribution list, it told me that the original could
not be found. I then clicked the Update Now button in the
distribution list and that fixed it. I wonder if you could skip the
forwarding step. You might try it, but make sure you have a backup of
your distribution lists first.
I hope that helps.

-Andy