Tag: PCs

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Migrating from Outlook to Windows Live Mail

Ugh. What fun I have had. For those of you that want to know how to do this without reading the hoops I jumped through, here’s a summary:

  1. On the same computer Outlook is on, open Outlook Express (XP) or Windows Mail (Vista)
  2. Import the Outlook data
  3. Save the converted mailbox store somewhere helpful
  4. Open Windows Live Mail where you want the mail to be
  5. Import the converted mailbox store

Sounds simple, right? No.

This all started because I’m helping a friend set up their new computer, including transferring all the Outlook data. The old computer is old and running Windows XP and Office 2000 Professional very slowly! The new computer is running Windows 7 Home Premium and Office 2010 Home and Student, which does not include Outlook. To get Outlook involves paying another £80 or so.

So first off, I went into Outlook on the old computer and looked for the export settings, found these OK and started with the calendar and contacts, export to CSV, looks simple. A lovely little Microsoft box pops up saying that this feature “Import and Export Module” is not installed, and could you possible put in the disc for Office 2000 Professional that you had 10 years ago? Unsurprisingly, this disc was not forthcoming. This is why I always tell people to select full installations – disk space is so cheap these days. This is also why I tell people to keep all the discs somewhere safe…

So, short of finding a copy of Office 2000 Professional in a friend’s dusty attic or on the dustier side of the Internet (of course, Microsoft don’t support it any more), the only export option available is to PST. Now, as far as I know, PST is a proprietary format, only used by Outlook. Not great for importing. But at least it’s a backup.

I then went onto the new computer and opened Windows Live Mail. I looked for the import function – after working out how to show the menu bar and find the File menu, the only options are to import from Outlook Express, Windows Mail or Windows Live Mail. Boo…. So I downloaded a trial version of Outlook 2010 and imported the PST file – all fine, everything is in there, I just needed to get it out!

Again I started with the calendars, as they should be easier than emails. I found a Save As function and exported the whole calendar to an iCalendar file. Simples. Then I went to Windows Live Mail and tried to import the file. No such luck. After scraping the Internet for a while, the only way seems to be to set up a Windows Live account, import the calendar file online, and sync the computer with the online version. I tried to do this, but the online import kept crashing after a certain amount of events. I got around this in the end by exporting the calendar from Outlook as ten different iCalendar files, all for a certain time period, and importing them one at a time… Not nice.

Then the contacts. There doesn’t seem to be a Save As or Export option for contacts in Outlook. I did find a Share by Email option, so did that and saved the attachments as vCard files. So far so good. However, the only way I could find to import them into Windows Live Mail was to double-click each contact individually! Aaargh!!

Anyway, everything’s in there now except the emails. And this is the tricky bit. With a nice ISP that lets you use IMAP, there wouldn’t even be a problem, all the emails would be on the server ready to download. Stupidly, BT don’t think this is a good idea. So in Outlook, my friend has ten years of emails downloaded over POP – *sigh*.

I won’t list all the things I tried, because it would take too long. Transferring them via my own GMail account would have worked, but I estimate it would have taken over 40 hours. I found the answer on a number of forums (thanks Mark) but it’s not possible on Windows 7. So I took the PST file home to my MacBook, which has Windows XP and Office 2007 Enterprise. So my poor Mac is sadly running Microsoft software and imports the PST file to Outlook fine. The trick now is that Outlook Express on XP and Windows Mail on Vista can communicate with Outlook. So I opened Outlook Express and managed to import all the Outlook data, which it saves as DBX files in a mailbox store. By going to Tools > Options > Maintenance > Store location you can find the store or move it somewhere more memorable. I then opened Windows Live Mail on my MacBook too, and found the import from Outlook Express option on the hidden File menu. Hooray, the emails are there in Windows Live Mail! At this point it seems like a miracle!

All that is left is to move the store (Tools > Options > Advanced > Maintenance > Store location) to my friends computer and get the folders in. Hopefully that should be the easy part…

My advice, as ever: Get a Mac.

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tedium

so i’ve succumbed to sneaking entries into my fledgling journal at work… the problem is, you work really hard all day, then finish something big at 5.05pm. so, you look at your “to do” list and realise that starting anything else now is a complete waste of time, i mean, there’s only 25 minutes left until hometime and at least the last ten of those need to be used for glancing surreptitously at the clock and making your computer shut down really slowly, and the customers aren’t that nice anyway so why should i rush to get anything done?

so here i am with nothing much to do and a journal to pad out. it’s funny, i never really have anything to write or say, but it doesn’t really matter because nobody really reads it anyway, and it’s just a way of sorting out your brain. and my brain needs a lot of sorting out. not because it’s particularly large, it’s just a mess, like the inside of my pc.

on that note, let’s trigger a “friendly discussion” on macs and pcs. i’m at work, but i’m actually typing this on a remote desktop to my mac at home. why? mainly because i can, i guess. and it looks prettier, and i like checking up on my mac to see if it’s ok. i really want to get a mac at work, but there is absolutely no reason to, because i’d have to run windows on it and you can get a dell to do that at a hundreth of the price. poo. my reason is that it looks prettier and i could use it at home too, but my boss doesn’t really like that reason. i tried to convince him that it would be useful to have a mac in the office for testing software on different platforms, but seeing as we already know there’s absolutely no way our software would work on a mac, that didn’t wash either.

oops, got distracted—someone wanted me to do work! well, i’m now at home with my beautiful wife, so i’d better sign off.