Reinstalling MSOffice-need to backup Outlook 2003-how?

[stratus595]

For some reason I cannot download or install MSOffice Professional Edition 2003 updates to my MSOffice. I've tried everything, researched it to death and been led on a treasure hunt only to find no one answer or any solution. I get many different message errors for different things so I am just going to remove it and re-install it and hopefully that will fix anything that is wrong right?

BUT before I do this I need to backup everything in MS Office Professional 2003-Outlook 2003 (NOT Outlook Express). How do I do this. Outlook is what I use for my business such as client info, etc so it's imperative that I back this up and not loose it. What do I need to do in order to do this correctly?

[pam123]

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;196492

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000457.htm

http://email.about.com/cs/outlooktips/qt/et102102.htm

[stratus595]

Thanks Pam,
Everything I was finding was for backing up Outlook Express but after more digging I think I found what I was looking for. I installed the Outlook Personal Folders Backup and used it to make a backup copy of the Archive Backup.pst and Outlook1.backup.pst files. I'm assuming that I have done it correctly and am now safe to remove Office 2003 from my system and re-install?

I want to make sure that I did this correctly and those files contain all of my mail, contacts, notes, EVERYTHING that is in my Outlook.

[pam123]

Open the folder on the disk you burned it to or at location you moved it to and make sure everything is there, effectively reading through it.
I can't guarantee XP won't do something weird but you'll catch anything obvious, like corrupted files that won't open or missing clusters of data, that way and you can be sure that XP recognizes you as an admin.

[glc]

You can't go wrong saving every .pst and .ost file you find on there.

[stratus595]

How do you open a data file, it won't let me.

I did a search on my system for all .pst and .ost files and have come up with five files but some of them have the same names but different numbers of kb. When I try to copy all of them since they have the same names it asks me if want to "replace" this file with this one, etc which I have no clue. I wouldn't want to overwrite the correct file with the wrong one.

I have backup.pst, Outlook.pst, Outlook.pst (same names, different creation dates and different sizes),archive.pst,Outlook1.pst.

[pam123]

You have to use the program that created the file to open it.
So you'd be directing Outlook to open the files on the backup not just clicking on them ( Sorry I wasn't clear about that.).

You'll have to check those other files by opening them in Outlook and seeing what's there.
If it's important create folders with different names/numbers (that you'll remember) and put a file in each.
You can back them up that way without fear of over-writting.