outlook express woes

TacT

well I'm currently doing some data entry and have 1400 odd names which I was adding to my address book in outlook express, I don't know wtf happened but when I went to open outlook express their earlier and lo and behold all 1400 names are gone! :eek:

So I pulled a bit of hair out, screamed at my monitor, calmed down and opened up outlook only to find they've all gone to outlook, as if by magic!

I need my address book back to outlook express, import/export won't do anything for me so I'm hoping a kind soul here might be able to give me something that will restore my work and sanity please, thanks.

I've tried everything, if I try import as a csv it tells me it can't load wabimp.dll.

My .pst file is there in outlook but the .dbx/wab from outlook express is all but gone! :mad:

shayh[MSFT]

what version of Outlook, OE and Windows are you running? It sounds like you have a csv exported from Outlook, is this correct?

I'll try and help but I need some more information first.

Pepe LeFrits

Originally posted by shayh[MSFT]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

lol

shayh[MSFT]

Glad you liked it. As I am on the boards as a Microsoft employee I need to include that disclaimer so for your benefit here it is again...

TacT

lol

I'm not at home atm so I'm unable to tell you much apart from the following.

win2k pro sp3
office 2000 with whatever version of outlook express comes with that or the latest ie6.0 update so I'm guessing it's version 6.

all updates installed although finally after calming down and trying to think what caused this I know what it was.

I was working away typing up some names etc yesterday when my beloved little windowsupdate icon popped up in my systray. I allowed it to download and install 2 of the latest patches (previously everything was up to date so it's one of the last 2 patches released that's caused this to happen, or the fact I kept working away with oe while the junk downloaded and installed)

I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier but it was after my reboot that everything vanished. I didn't look at oe etc again until today when lo and behold *up in smoke* went my list of contacts.

The whole thing is a mess and I'm considering just keeping the pathetic excel doc I managed to export to my desktop with all the relevant info and wiping and re-installing win2k, I was gonna image over to my new hd which is arriving in the next two days but after this big fat mess I think a clean install is in order, it's been installed for a good while now anyway

The problem originally was me trying to get the contacts back out of outlook and into OE where they originated!

I'd exhausted as many options as I could muster earlier after much googling and guesswork so I went and tried to repair office2000 - no go due to some hitimage.exe or htimage.exe error.

I then proceeded to completely uninstall and re-install office but alas now it doesn't even want to install giving me a big fat red box and a hard error - then after much joy it started bluescreening saying hard error if there is any hardware/software you installed recently pls repair/uninstall/reinstall...............

Can I get this excel doc to give me back my address book when I re-install is my main concern now as I've given up.

I can't remember having so much trouble that I spent so much time trying to fix without getting anywhere. It drove me f*ckin nuts! NUTS NUTS I TELLz YA!

spongebob

there are a few 'kinds'of OE address book for historic reasons.

you may be pointing at the wrong one.

search your harddrive for

*.mab
*.wab

whats in the internet control panel > programs > contacts at the moment

what OTHER options are selectable

you run no risk of losing any data from the above

M

TacT

I'll have a look when I get home muck, thanks, hadn't tried .mab

The big question atm for me is will this excel file full of all those details be of any use? :eek:

It doesn't even look like I can get office to re-install atm

spongebob

uninstalling office will not remove the data

Outlook stores Addresses AKA Addresses in either

.ost (Offline folder if you have Exchange Server)
.pst (as Internet mail Program)


Outlook Express uses

.wab (Normally)
.pab (ISTR older versions Personal Address Book)

.mab was nutscrape I now vaguely remember

the Internet control panel will allow OE to use Outlook .pst contacts instead....without the import and export.

also remember when you added the last of the 1400 contacts and search the hard drive for all files cnages around that time....

M

DivX

From what i remember

*.PST - Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders

this is where all your e-mails are stored in Outlook 97/2K

*.PAB - Microsoft Outlook Personal Address Book

this is the file we want to import from Outlook 2k.

*.WAB - Microsoft Express 6 Personal address Book.

we don't need to worry about this.


So here is the procedure for exporting address from outlook 97 (2k is very simular as i remember) and importing them back into outlook express.

1. Open Outlook 97, choose File, Import and Export, and select Export to a file. Click the Next button.

2. Following the wizard's prompts, select the Contacts folder, click Next, and choose Personal Address Book from the list of export formats. Click Next again.

3. When you click Finish, Outlook 97 copies the information to the Personal Address Book in your current profile.

4. Next, open Outlook Express, choose File, Import, Address Book, and select Microsoft Exchange Personal Address Book from the list of available formats. (This choice is available only if you have Windows Messaging or Outlook 97 installed and you have created a Personal Address Book.)

5. Click the Import button to finish the process. Your collection of email addresses and other contact information appear in the Windows Address Book.


By default office 97/2K stores all your *.pst *.pab files under the windows directory.

Hope this helps.

TacT

cheers, I'm gonna have some great fun when I get home

TacT

Thanks for the help folks.
After much toil sitting down to sort it out around 12 or so I've finally got the buggering problem sorted.

I couldn't get a look at outlook because the address book had been stored in office2000 outlook and this was outlook 97...

outlook express wouldn't import the csv so I re-installed IE6 with OE.
My windows installer was giving me problems with office 2000 which I fixed by re-registering it.

I installed office2000 and opened up outlook, (voila, all the names back where they were in the 2nd place) exported the csv to the desktop. Closed down the fecker and uninstalled him! Rebooted ran OE, import other address book, csv file, hurray, victory!

this is the short version