Moving Outlook from PC to laptop and back

[sparklinbluiz]

Hi All,
I apologize if this is a double post. I replied to a post I found from over
a year ago and could not find my post so was not sure if it worked or not.
I use outlook for everything, including the journal entries. I am going out
of the country on business in a few days and just purchased a laptop. I
uninstalled the trial version of Office 2007 Small Business and installed my
licensed copy of 2003. I run that on both the PC and laptop now.
I would like to know the best way of using outlook on both without losing
anything, without downloading triplicate emails from my server, keeping the
rules I have set up for filtering messages from certain domains to certain
folders, bringing the journal entries etc. My thought was to copy the .pst
file from the PC and paste it into the folder that houses the .pst on the
laptop and just open outlook. But...will that open? Is that the right way?
Will it allow the user profile from the PC to run on the laptop? Then, what
happens when I return and want to resume using outlook on the PC but need
copies of any emails from when I was away or any calendar appts, journal
entries created on the laptop. Also, should I disable the email download
function on the PC while I am away so I don't duplicate the emails in the
profile when I come back? How does this work if I leave a copy of all my
emails on my server after they download so I can access them from anywhere?

Thank you in advance for your help. I have looked through previous posts but
these questions still are not clear for me.

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP P/I]]

Moving the .PST file will give you everything but the Outlook profile and
rules, since these live in the Registry. Do NOT paste the .PST file over
any existing .PST files as this will corrupt your Outlook profile; copy it
somewhere else and use 'File|Open|Outlook Data File' to access it. You have
no need to disable the download function on the PC as I assume you will not
be using it while away.

http://www.slipstick.com/config/backup.asp
Outlook & Exchange/Windows Messaging Backup and Dual-Boot
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/sync.asp
Synchronizing Outlook on Two Machines

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Live at Hot Licks - www.badnewsbluesband.com

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP-P/I]]

I should add that rules can be exported from the Rules Wizard on one machine
and imported into Outlook on another.

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Still Cadillacin' - www.badnewsbluesband.com

 

[sparklinbluiz]

Hi Hal,
Thanks for the response. I have my .pst folder set up on the laptop now and
I did the "import" for the rwz file. I now have 2 sets of the same rules, the
only difference being one set says (For other machine) after each rule.

Also, I'm not sure where to bring the NK2 file. Right now both the .rwz and
..nk2 files are in "my documents". I put the .pst folder in my
documents/outlook

Can you advise if I should have the duplicate set of rules and what to do
with the .nk2 file?
Thank you!

 

[Brian Tillman]

Also, I'm not sure where to bring the NK2 file. Right now both the
.rwz and .nk2 files are in "my documents". I put the .pst folder in my
documents/outlook

Can you advise if I should have the duplicate set of rules and what
to do with the .nk2 file?

Put the NK2 file in %AppData%\Microsoft\Outlook and name it to match the
name of your mail profile.

Delete the rules that say "for the other machine". For Outlook 2007, rules
are in the PST, I believe, and that's why you see the original set. Rules
contain more information that just what's visible in the Rules Wizard,
however. They also contain information on the PC where they were defined
and that's what's cauing the "other machine" clause to appear. The export
and import should reset that information, but the old rules will remain
until you delete them.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Delete the rules that say "for the other machine". For Outlook 2007,
rules are in the PST, I believe, and that's why you see the original
set. Rules contain more information that just what's visible in the
Rules Wizard, however. They also contain information on the PC where
they were defined and that's what's cauing the "other machine" clause
to appear. The export and import should reset that information, but
the old rules will remain until you delete them.

Or leave them in. As you move your PST back and forth, the "other machine"
designation should switch from one set to the other.

 

[sparklinbluiz]

Hi All,

I just returned from out of the country and from working with my laptop for
2 weeks. While I was using it, I scheduled appts, entered contacts and
exchanged many emails. The size of the .pst folder went from 89,000 to approx
134,000. I wanted to bring the .pst file back onto my PC. I re-read all of
the posts, made a copy of the .pst on the PC, then copied the .pst from the
laptop into "my documents/Outlook" folder that I created. I then opened
Outlook, clicked on open data file and the file opened. I remembered I had to
do something in control panel/mail with the default profile but couldn't
figure out what. I ended up with 2 identical personal folders and found a
post on here about how to remove one (I dont think it was a corrupt file). I
was able to remove the duplicate and checked to be sure the new contacts were
listed and everything SEEMS to be fine, however, there is one thing that I
ALWAYS have a problem with when opening a new .pst. Duplicate emails are now
downloading and i have close to 100. This happened on the leptop when I first
opened the .pst on that machine. Now I have to go in and manually delete all
these duplicates again. Is there a away to prevent this from happening when
moving outlook between two computers? I will be going out of town again in
Oct and possibly Aug and don't want to keep dealing with the extra emails.
Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[Brian Tillman]

everything SEEMS
to be fine, however, there is one thing that I ALWAYS have a problem
with when opening a new .pst. Duplicate emails are now downloading
and i have close to 100.

Not surprising. Outlook keeps track of what has and hasn't been downloaded
in a hidden message in the default PST. Make a new one and you lose that
data, so Outlook has to download everything all over again.

 

[sparklinbluiz]

So is there a way around this Brian? I never overwrite the .PST, I always
rename the old one and the click on open and point to the .PST I want. Is the
ONLY way around this to delete everything off the email server first?
Thanks.

 

[Brian Tillman]

So is there a way around this Brian?

Not as far as I can tell.

 

[sparklinbluiz]

Here's what I did: I copied the .PST from the desktop, put it on the laptop
and opened the data file. Stopped email from downloading and made a subfolder
off the inbox and moved all of my inbox into it. I then let the emails
download all the way, took note of what date I already had in the original
inbox and when all the email downloaded I was able to delete everything in
the inbox that i already had. I then moved everything back into the inbox and
I can either delete the folder or use it the next time. At least it was
faster than having to go through all the duplicates!

Thanks for your help as always.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Here's what I did: I copied the .PST from the desktop, put it on the
laptop and opened the data file. Stopped email from downloading and
made a subfolder off the inbox and moved all of my inbox into it. I
then let the emails download all the way, took note of what date I
already had in the original inbox and when all the email downloaded I
was able to delete everything in the inbox that i already had. I then
moved everything back into the inbox and I can either delete the
folder or use it the next time. At least it was faster than having to
go through all the duplicates!

An alternative is to use the webmail interface to your ISP mailbox, create a
different folder there, and move all your old messages to that folder. If
it's not in the mailbox's Inbox, Outlook can't see it when it downloads.