Migrating Outlook Express 2003 to new PC

[Miskatonic]

The hard drive on my parents' desktop that I built has filled up and the partition for C: is small and is slowing things down because it is nearly full, with a couple hundred megabytes left. I got them a new hard drive that's much bigger, installed XP on it and the last thing I have to do is setup Outlook Express 2003 and move their emails/settings, etc. from the old hard drive to the new hard drive.

I've never used OE so I'm not familiar with the setup.

Any advice?

[glc]

Outlook or Outlook Express? There was an Outlook 2003, but not Outlook Express 2003.

Why didn't you just clone the old drive to the new drive?

[edfair]

If it is outlook express I would suggest that you put the old drive back in temporarily and use the tools, options, store location to relocate the normal store location to something like a mail directory at the root of the drive. That is going to make it much easier to deal with rather than the 8 or 9 deep current location. Also export the address book as CSV to another folder at the root.

Then it is a matter of copying the stuff drive to drive. On the new machine you would import the address book and messages. And as a last step change the store location on the new install. Makes it easier to keep track of.

If they surf, you could also export their cookies and favorites to a friendly place for transfer then import them on the new.

[glc]

The address book doesn't have to be exported as CSV, you can simply keep it in the existing .WAB format.

[Force Flow]

You also might want to copy over the .nk2 files. Those contain the addresses stored in the "to" field for autocomplete, which might not be store in the address book.

[Miskatonic]

Originally Posted by glc Outlook or Outlook Express? There was an Outlook 2003, but not Outlook Express 2003. Why didn't you just clone the old drive to the new drive?

You're assuming I knew how to do that in the first place.

It must be outlook then since it's MS Office 2003.

The address book and messages are probably the only items I need to transfer over.

[glc]

That is Outlook. Everything significant is contained in a single "outlook.pst" file. Find the file on the old drive, then:

Open Outlook.
On the File menu, click Import And Export. If the command is not available, rest the pointer over the chevrons at the bottom of the menu, and then click Import and Export.
Click Import from another program or file, and then click Next.
Click Personal Folder File (.pst), and then click Next.
Type the path and the name of the .pst file that you want to import, and then click Next.
Select the folder that you want to import. To import everything in the .pst file, select the top of the hierarchy.
Click Finish.

[Miskatonic]

Cool deal, thanks! It will be nice to have them up and running and not complaining.