Transfer Contacts file to new Hard drive

[Sol]

I want to transfer the contacts from my old hard drive to my new PC I just
bought. I am running Windows XP Professional, the old HD is MS Office 2003
and the new one is 2007. I was searching for the contacts files, but was
unable to locate them.
Any suggestions
Sol

 

[Roady [MVP]]

They are contained within the same pst-file as your mails.
See http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/backupandrestore.htm

 

[John Mayson]

I want to transfer the contacts from my old hard drive to my new PC I just
bought. I am running Windows XP Professional, the old HD is MS Office 2003
and the new one is 2007. I was searching for the contacts files, but was
unable to locate them.

They're in your .pst file.

Do you have an Exchange server? May I make a suggestion? Keep your
contacts, calendar, and notes on the server, not in your .pst file. This
has a couple advantages:

1. If your .pst files becomes corrupt, you'll still have this information.
2. You'll have access to it from another computer and via Exchange
webmail.

I'm sure you have a quota on your Exchange server. I found it handy to
keep emails related to active projects on my Exchange server versus
storing it in locally. It allowed me to view these messages from
anywhere, including from my iBook at home via webmail.

John

 

[Sol]

Thank you John for your reply,

I already transfered the .pst files, all the e-mails that I had there.
However, the contacts did not got transfered. I don't know why, and what to
do in order to import them.
Any suggestions?

Thank you again,
Sol

 

[Gordon]

Thank you John for your reply,

I already transfered the .pst files, all the e-mails that I had there.
However, the contacts did not got transfered. I don't know why, and what
to
do in order to import them.
Any suggestions?

Look under Contacts to see if you have TWO sets of Contacts.
If you transferred the correct pst file in the tight manner then your
contacts WILL be there.

 

[John Mayson]

Thank you John for your reply,

You're welcome.

I already transfered the .pst files, all the e-mails that I had there.
However, the contacts did not got transfered. I don't know why, and what to
do in order to import them.
Any suggestions?

Are they still on your old machine? I'm not sure why they wouldn't have
come across.

John

 

[Sol]

Thank you John,

I have them in my old machine; it is connected as an external HD. I see them
there and I have successfully transferred them but the contacts did not come
along.
Sol

 

[Sol]

Thank you Gordon,

I looked for a double set of contacts, but no I have only one, can you come
up with a solution?

Thank you,
Sol

 

[John Mayson]

Worst case you can export your contacts on your old machines and reimport
them on the new. Are you certain your contacts are stored in the .pst
you've moved?

 

[Gordon]

Are you certain your contacts are stored in the .pst you've moved?

I would guess they aren't. I've never heard of a pst being correctly
migrated and then the contacts don't show up...

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Please don't recommend to users that they export Outlook data and import in
on another installation. Someone might think that's the right thing to do.
It never is.

 

[John Mayson]

Please don't recommend to users that they export Outlook data and import
in on another installation. Someone might think that's the right thing to
do. It never is.

In all my years using Outlook I have never had this problem with
importing/exporting contacts. Sometimes it *is* the right thing to do.

John

 

[Roady [MVP]]

The point Russ is trying to make is that the OP has never migrated his/her
data properly to begin with.
Exporting and then importing the pst-file is not the way to go and
apparently the OP also skipped the Contacts folder in the process.
If the OP had copied his/her original pst-file and reattached that to
Outlook directly, then there is no way that the contacts folder was left out
in the process.
See http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/backupandrestore.htm

I agree with your point that importing/exporting sometimes is the right
thing to do although it is only very rarely. If you only want to export a
select few items or folders, then copying the contents to a separate
pst-file is usually faster and gives you more control.



-----

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

10 years ago, perhaps. But the user clearly stated they were using Outlook
2007. Export/import from one PST file to another is far too dysfunctional in
current Outlook versions ever to be recommended.

 

[Sol]

I really appreciate all your support, thank you.

I went ahead and reperformed the whole process and at this time I
successfully got all the information.

Here are steps I followed:

File>Import and Export...>Import from another program or File> Personal
Folder File (.pst)> Do not Import Duplicates, at this time I selected the
"Contacts" folder and clicked Finish.

Thank you again.
Sol

10 years ago, perhaps. But the user clearly stated they were using Outlook
2007. Export/import from one PST file to another is far too dysfunctional in
current Outlook versions ever to be recommended.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

To avoid making the same mistake again, use the correct method for data
transfer: copy the data file and open it in the installation to which you
want to transfer the data.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

I really appreciate all your support, thank you.

I went ahead and reperformed the whole process and at this time I
successfully got all the information.

Here are steps I followed:

File>Import and Export...>Import from another program or File> Personal
Folder File (.pst)> Do not Import Duplicates, at this time I selected the
"Contacts" folder and clicked Finish.

Thank you again.
Sol

10 years ago, perhaps. But the user clearly stated they were using
Outlook
2007. Export/import from one PST file to another is far too dysfunctional
in
current Outlook versions ever to be recommended.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

On Mon, 11 May 2009, Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:


Please don't recommend to users that they export Outlook data and
import
in on another installation. Someone might think that's the right thing
to
do. It never is.

In all my years using Outlook I have never had this problem with
importing/exporting contacts. Sometimes it *is* the right thing to do.

John

 

[John Mayson]

Glad it worked.

I wasn't trying to start a flamewar this afternoon. I personally have not
had trouble importing contacts aross various versions of Outlook, but
maybe I'm just lucky, I don't know. I'll read up a little about doing
that. Given my success I believed the risk to the original poster was
low, but some of you disagreed.

John

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

You'll have no trouble finding posts that tell you why importing and
exporting are a poor choice for transferring Outlook data.

 

[alcraig]

I, too have the same problem. Initially I just dragged and dropped the pst
file from my old hard drive onto my new hard drive. All my email folders and
emails came back, but the contacts and address book doesn't come accross.
Russ, rather than tell us what not to do, could you please tell what to do?
A

You'll have no trouble finding posts that tell you why importing and
exporting are a poor choice for transferring Outlook data.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I, too have the same problem. Initially I just dragged and dropped the pst
file from my old hard drive onto my new hard drive. All my email folders
and
emails came back, but the contacts and address book doesn't come accross.
Russ, rather than tell us what not to do, could you please tell what to do?

The Contacts MUST "come across". They're in the same file as all your other
Outlook data - the Calendar, Inbox, Tasks, etc. Press Ctrl-6 or click the
"Folder List" icon at the bottom of the Navigation Pane to see all your
folders. Contacts will be there. Select it to open it and verify all your
contacts are there.

If you don't see the contacts in the Address Book interface, then you migrated
your data incorrectly and the Outlook Address Book service is damaged or you
simploy did not enable your Contacts folder as an address book. A five second
Google of this newsgroup will find one of the many posts explaining how to to
that.