Moving to Outlook 2002 from Outlook Express 6

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Saxon
  • Start date Start date
J

John Saxon

I would really like to make this move as my new mobile phone will sync with
Outlook Calendar and appointments.
But I am finding it somewhat frustrating.

On the positive side - several thousand and 1.8GB of messages in 100 plus
folders were imported by Outlook with the folder (and sub folders) structure
intact.

But things are not so good with Rules and specially contacts.
1. Some OE rules work in Outlook - some do not. But I can live with fixing
those which do not.
2. Have tried importing 748 OE contacts (including 14 groups) into Outlook.
So far, despite trying the 3 different duplicate type options, only 210 have
been imported. And no groups. Very frustrating. Can I just delete the
Outlook Contacts folder and start over again?
3. Finally when trying to write a new message in Outlook to one of the
addressees that was successfully imported - I can't make auto complete
work - the full first name & surname has to be typed. Then it cannot find
the name and asks if it can create a new address. However if the contact
list is browsed and the recipient is selected - all is well.

Was life meant to be this hard? Any suggestions most gratefully received.
JohnS
P.S. Any way to make an Outlook signature the default from several?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From John Saxon
www.pcug.org.au/~jsaxon
In fine Summertime Canberra
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Stop. Back up. How thoroughly did you research what you were doing?
The data file in Outlook 2002 cannot handle 1.8 GB of data.
How were you planning to overcome that limitation?
 
Hi John, I can comment on item #3 First, let me reassure you, life was
not meant to be this hard. but it does rain on occasion.

Outlook To and CC boxes search the addresss book contents dynamically.
However sometimes the autofil is not instant. Also if you tyoe to: John
and you have 20 johns in your address book you wil get an underlined
red mark, when you hit send a dialog will appear with a listing of all
20 Johns and ask you to choose which one.

your note:
"3. Finally when trying to write a new message in Outlook to one of the
addressees that was successfully imported - I can't make auto complete
work - the full first name & surname has to be typed. Then it cannot
find the name and asks if it can create a new address. However if the
contact
list is browsed and the recipient is selected - all is well."

This seems to indicate that you have a seperate contacts folder than
the primary Outlook contacts. If this is true, then Right click that
oulook Contacts folder, select properties, select the Outlook Address
Book tab, check the box that says "Show this folder ad an e-mail
address book". Shis should help.

If the above assumption is false, and you only use the main Outlook
address book then you may have some clean up to do. To check this, Open
Outlook Contacts, Select View, select Arrange by, current view, then
PHONE LIST. This will give a simple view of a list that you can esily
sort by Full name or Company or whatever.

If you want to verify First names and last names were entered
correctly, Right click over "full name" column lable and select "Field
Chooser". Locate the "Last name" in the list and drag it up next to
where the Full name resides. Repeat that for "First name" from the
field chooser. you have just added sortable columns that you can sort
individually by last name and first name. There you can check the
integrity of your import. From this view you can make changes to the
data just by clicking in the area where the information is. If you are
careful tyou can check your data prety fast.
 
Hi Russ...

I have to confess that I did not research that aspect.

I just assumed that Outlook would probably handle a large volume of saved
messages better than Outlook Express, which was (and still is) working well.

But I was impressed by the mail import - and as far as I can tell - I have
not lost anything much.

All the best - JohnS

Russ Valentine said:
Stop. Back up. How thoroughly did you research what you were doing?
The data file in Outlook 2002 cannot handle 1.8 GB of data.
How were you planning to overcome that limitation?
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
John Saxon said:
I would really like to make this move as my new mobile phone will sync
with Outlook Calendar and appointments.
But I am finding it somewhat frustrating.

On the positive side - several thousand and 1.8GB of messages in 100 plus
folders were imported by Outlook with the folder (and sub folders)
structure intact.

But things are not so good with Rules and specially contacts.
1. Some OE rules work in Outlook - some do not. But I can live with
fixing those which do not.
2. Have tried importing 748 OE contacts (including 14 groups) into
Outlook. So far, despite trying the 3 different duplicate type options,
only 210 have been imported. And no groups. Very frustrating. Can I just
delete the Outlook Contacts folder and start over again?
3. Finally when trying to write a new message in Outlook to one of the
addressees that was successfully imported - I can't make auto complete
work - the full first name & surname has to be typed. Then it cannot find
the name and asks if it can create a new address. However if the contact
list is browsed and the recipient is selected - all is well.

Was life meant to be this hard? Any suggestions most gratefully received.
JohnS
P.S. Any way to make an Outlook signature the default from several?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From John Saxon
www.pcug.org.au/~jsaxon
In fine Summertime Canberra
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
G'day & many thanks for your rapid & extensive reply.

I could not find another contacts or similar file after extensive searches.

I learnt some nice techniques for sorting and checking address lists -
thanks very much for that.

A check on just the first names beginning with A showed that out of 45 names
only 14 were successfully imported into out look Contacts - around 28%,
Similar to the 210 out of 748 total - about 31%. There seemed to be no
pattern at all to those which were successful or dropped.

I came to the conclusion that this was all due to probably exceeding the 1.8
GB PST file limit as the messages were transferred before the addresses. The
full PST file size is shown as 1,884,976 KB by Windows Explorer. Despite
this Outlook was still sending and receiving messages O.K.

Luckily I had only been trying to use Outlook for 2 1/2 days and I have
found most of the messages received and sent in that time and forwarded them
back to Outlook Express!

So I will now regroup and contemplate obtaining Outlook 2003 or drastically
archiving my messages before attempting to use Outlook again.

Once more - many thanks for your advice - JohnS
 
Please immediately start archiving your emails to other PST files before
your current one becomes irreversibly corrupt. Try not to let any PST file
exceed 1.5 GB.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
John Saxon said:
Hi Russ...

I have to confess that I did not research that aspect.

I just assumed that Outlook would probably handle a large volume of saved
messages better than Outlook Express, which was (and still is) working
well.

But I was impressed by the mail import - and as far as I can tell - I have
not lost anything much.

All the best - JohnS

Russ Valentine said:
Stop. Back up. How thoroughly did you research what you were doing?
The data file in Outlook 2002 cannot handle 1.8 GB of data.
How were you planning to overcome that limitation?
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
John Saxon said:
I would really like to make this move as my new mobile phone will sync
with Outlook Calendar and appointments.
But I am finding it somewhat frustrating.

On the positive side - several thousand and 1.8GB of messages in 100
plus folders were imported by Outlook with the folder (and sub folders)
structure intact.

But things are not so good with Rules and specially contacts.
1. Some OE rules work in Outlook - some do not. But I can live with
fixing those which do not.
2. Have tried importing 748 OE contacts (including 14 groups) into
Outlook. So far, despite trying the 3 different duplicate type options,
only 210 have been imported. And no groups. Very frustrating. Can I just
delete the Outlook Contacts folder and start over again?
3. Finally when trying to write a new message in Outlook to one of the
addressees that was successfully imported - I can't make auto complete
work - the full first name & surname has to be typed. Then it cannot
find the name and asks if it can create a new address. However if the
contact list is browsed and the recipient is selected - all is well.

Was life meant to be this hard? Any suggestions most gratefully
received. JohnS
P.S. Any way to make an Outlook signature the default from several?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From John Saxon
www.pcug.org.au/~jsaxon
In fine Summertime Canberra
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
As for item 2, groups in OE will not survive importing into Outlook. You
must create Distribution Lists in Outlook.
 
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