I'm an e-Pro and a Microsoft Certified System Engineer. Someone on the e-Pro forum ask how to move an email system from an old computer to a new computer using Outlook.
I typed up the steps I use, and thought, hey, others might be able to use this. So, the following are the (not so basic) steps I use.
I do this for my computer clients often, here is my formula. I'm not going to tell you specifically how to do every step because it's a little different depending on what kind of OS you have and which version of Outlook you've got.
•1. On your new computer.
•2. Install Outlook on your new computer.
•3. Setup your email accounts - email addresses, pop3 and smtp, go into advanced and set whether you want to save a copy of your email on the server.
•4. Get all of your NEW mail (send / receive)
•5. Send at least one email on your new system (this creates an nk2 file)
•6. Go to your old computer making sure Outlook is not running.
•a. Locate your most recent PST file. The default name is Outlook.pst (check the date).
•b. Google is your friend - Use search terms like "Outlook 03 xp outlook location of pst" to aid in finding the location of your pst.
•c. Make a copy of the PST file. Best to copy it to a thumb drive.
•d. Also find your .nk2 file and copy it (again, use Google to find the location). The nk2 file holds your auto complete information.
• i. An example of auto complete is when you start to type the name of a recipient in an email, and you get a list of previous email addresses that you can chose from - that's auto complete.
•7. Note that all of your old email along with your existing contacts, is contained in the pst file.
•8. I used to just copy the old pst file to the new computer, but that is not the best way to do it. Rather, you want to import the pst file. When you import it, it accomplishes a couple of things.
•a. Since you have already received your lasted email (some of which may also be contained in your pst file already), when you import your pst file, you have the option of NOT importing duplicates. Be sure to set that, so that you don't get two copies of any emails.
•b. Another reason for importing is that email systems are kinda of dumb in the following way. If you receive an email, your mail system knows you have received it, and it won't send you that email again. BUT, if you had just copied your pst file to the new computer, yes, you would have all of your old email, BUT, your mail system wouldn't know you had it and it would send any email from your mail server to your computer again. Some of that mail you may already have, so you would get duplicates. If this doesn't make sense, just take my word for it. I have done it both ways many times.
•9. To import the pst, you will use Outlook's own tools. Back to Google, use search terms like, "how to import pst Outlook 07" Remember to NOT import duplicates. You will need to have your thumb drive with you old pst file in your new computer.
•10. Last step is to copy the nk2 file. Make sure Outlook is off. Use Google again to help you locate the nk2 file on the new computer. Copy the old nk2 file over the one on the new computer.
Here are the steps again in short hand.
•1. Install Outlook on new computer
•2. Set up mail accounts
•3. Do a send receive
•4. Send at least one email to create nk2 file
•5. Copy old pst and nk2 file from old computer
•6. Import old pst to new Outlook
•7. Copy Nk2 over the nk2 file on the new computer.
If this is beyond your capabilities, get some help.
Best of luck
Paul McDuell
;)
;)
