How to transfer address books from one computer to another?

[Collingwood]

I do not know how I can transfer or export my address book and personal
messages from outlook express on my old desktop, to my outlook account on my
new laptop. Do I need to retype all of my contacts in outlook, and what
about the important messages I saved in a personal folder? Not to mention
there is no floppy drive on the laptop...What do I ?

 

[Gordon]

I do not know how I can transfer or export my address book and personal
messages from outlook express on my old desktop, to my outlook account on
my
new laptop. Do I need to retype all of my contacts in outlook, and what
about the important messages I saved in a personal folder? Not to mention
there is no floppy drive on the laptop...What do I ?

There are several steps you need to take, depending on your hardware.
Firstly, you need to transfer your OE mail and address book to OE on the new
machine.
take a look here on how to transfer the files:
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/backup/

If you have any sort of quantity of emails to transfer then a floppy will be
no good anyway.
There are several options: You can copy all the data to a CD if you have a
CD burner on the desktop: If both machines have a Network card in you can
connect them via a crossover cable, you can upload all the data to a
website, (assuming a broadband connection) or failing all that, you can
pick up a 100MB Zip drive very very cheaply.

Having transfered all your mail and data to OE on your new machine, from
within OE, export your mail to Outlook. Do NOT import from within Outlook
for your mail.
Then in Outlook, import your addres book and email settings.

HTH

 

[Collingwood]

Thanks Gordon for the help. I followed the link and did as it instructed for
backing up OE folders and address book. However, when I try to import the
folders onto my laptop, it continually says error. The link said to make
sure that the folders did not copy as read only or I would recieve such error
messages. The folders all said archive before I copied them to my CD-R disc,
but they say read only when I put them into the laptop. It does not allow me
to change it to archive on the new laptop or on my old computer. What eles
do I need to do, or is it because it is a CD-R and not a CD-RW that I am
using? Again thanks for the helpful response from the previous
question...any help on this one?

Collingwood

 

[Brian Tillman]

Thanks Gordon for the help. I followed the link and did as it
instructed for backing up OE folders and address book. However, when
I try to import the folders onto my laptop, it continually says
error. The link said to make sure that the folders did not copy as
read only or I would recieve such error messages. The folders all
said archive before I copied them to my CD-R disc, but they say read
only when I put them into the laptop. It does not allow me to change
it to archive on the new laptop or on my old computer. What eles do
I need to do, or is it because it is a CD-R and not a CD-RW that I am
using? Again thanks for the helpful response from the previous
question...any help on this one?

After you drag them to a folder on your hard drive, you should be able to
right-click each, choose Properties, and uncheck the "Read-only" attribute.

 

[Melissa]

Hi,

I found this thread and thought it would help me. I was using Outlook
Express on my desktop and trying to transfer my messages and address book to
Outlook on my new laptop. I have my Outlook Express files (store folder) on
my laptop's harddrive in a temporary location. However, I can't transfer
them to OE on my laptop, because I'm running Vista and OE is no longer
available. Do I need to transfer the OE mail and address book to Windows
Mail and then to export them to Outlook?

Of course the laptop is brand new but Office was presinstalled by Dell, so
neither Dell nor Microsoft will assist in this issue.

Thanks!

Melissa

 

[DL]

Actually if you have a preinstalled *full* version of Office - not the trial
version- its Dell responsibility to support Office issues, not MS

You have to connect your outlook express mail store to windows Mail on the
new PC before you can export to Outlook. Outlook has to be configured first.
The address book on the old PC is contained in the *wab file, this file has
to be copied to the new PC, but i'm unsure if you have to copy to a specific
location since I have never used OE or the wab file. Then in Outlook you can
import your addresses.

 

[Melissa]

DL,

Thanks. Yes, I tried calling both Dell and MS and Dell told me to call MS
and of course as you mentioned MS told me to call Dell.

Anyway, I'll try transferring OE store to Windows Mail and then export to
Outlook. I've setup Outlook and it's working fine.

I transferred my .wab OE Address Book file and it imported them in Outlook,
but lists them individually. None of my 'groups' transferred correctly,
they're just empty. I might try exporting it as a .csv file and then
importing and see if that works.

Thanks for your help,

Melissa

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

It won't work. "Groups" in the WAB have no counterpart in Outlook. You must
create Distribution Lists in Outlook from your Contacts.

 

[DL]

I dont believe you can import the groups (addresses)
Outlook Contacts uses Categories - which I believe is the same thing as
Groups - so you would have to Categorise your Contacts