Backing up/restoring office

[medic_taz]

I'm going to be replacing my system drive and reinstalling office 2000 and
Win XP home SP2. Is there an easy way to preserve the settings in Word, excel
etc. as well as all the email, contact, calendar info from Outlook and
outlook express.

I have an external HD that I'll be copying everything to for the backup.

Thanks

 

[Bob I]

All data should be backed up as a matter of course. As to replacing the
drive, I would suggest using the cloning software typically supplied
with new retail purchased drives for this purpose. Saves having to
reinstall everything and a lot of time.

 

[medic_taz]

The new HD did not come with cloning software and I have been working without
regular backups of emails etc. which is part of the reason for
needing/wanting to reinstall windows and office.

 

[Bob I]

You really need to "fix" the no regular backup problem first. And
certainly isn't a reason for reinstalling Windows and Office. Perhaps
visiting the web site of the drive manufacturer and downloading the
cloning software will be a good idea. I'd give you a link but you didn't
share the manufactures name.

 

[medic_taz]

Ordinarily I would agree with you, however, I'm having system wide issues
like Outlook crashing on startup as often as it doesn't, Start up speed of
Office applications including Outlook has drastically increased even with
regular archiving of Outlook data. Also over system performance has slowed
down, and I get messages telling me that various applications need to be
updated but when I visit the appropriate update sites I'm told the software
is up to date. I've done multiple scans for viruses, trojans, spyware,
malware, etc. and apparently the system is clean. I've tried various other
solutions to fix these problems without success so the only recourse I can
think of is starting over. If there are any other ideas short of "nuke and
pave" then I'm all for it.

 

[DL]

For Outlook you copy all *.pst files (with OL closed)
For OE you copy dbx or the entire OE data folder and the *wab file
Presumably you have run a repair installation of winxp, and a Detect/Repair
of Office
You have used msconfig to disable all startups, hide MS services and disable
the rest, then rebooted to test
You have run scanpst.exe on your OL data files?
Used the hd manufacturers test utility on your HD
Run a memory test, www.memtest.org

 

[Bob I]

I'm with DL on the harddrive issue, I suspect the "slowness" is from the
drive reverting back to PIO access mode from DMA due to read errors. You
may install to a new drive, but there isn't much to lose but a little
time with a clone, and IF you need to, you can "nuke and pave" it.