Outlook 2000-2003 PST Transfer

[Murf]

Working on a friends computer. Was using Outlook 2000. She has the PST file saved on a memory stick. (exported it). New computer running XP using Outlook 2003. Have been trying to get contents of the Outlook 2000 PST merged into or copied into the 2003 PST file.

I know Outlook 2000 uses ANSI and Outlook 2003 uses unicode and that Outlook 2003 will not read the Outlook 2000 pst file.

What we have ended up with is multiple Personal Folders (4 ea) in Outlook 2003, which we cannot remove. We first tried making a Outlook pst (within outlook 2003) as a 1998-2002 Data file. Then import the data from the 2000 PST file. This was accomplished but still cannot get rid of the mulitple personal folders.

Tried removing within Outlook 2003 but the "Close Data" was greyed out, which supposedly tells you that that personal folder is the default one. Went in and told it which one was default, but still they are grayed out.

Looking for the easiest way to import the Outlook 2000 PST into the Outlook 2003 pst and only have one instance of personal folder.

The weird thing is did a search and only one PST file comes up and it is located in the right place. However, have 4 entries of personal folder in mail. Doing a properites shows three of them pointing to a HTM page on her C: drive as the home page.

We also uninstalled and reinstalled same problem Could not find the registry entry for her profile where the pointer is for the PST file.

[Tuttle]

You shouldn't have any issues at all just using the Outlook 2000 PST file on the Outlook 2003 machine -- assuming you haven't received mail in OL2003 yet, just copy the file into place. You'll still have the 2 GB limit etc, but OL2003 will handle old-format files fine. We do this as far back as OL98 at work.

If you want to merge two files, File | Import and Export | Import from another program or file | Personal Folder File. Just import into the existing single Personal Folders category (although it's worth taking a backup first).

[Murf]

Thanks Tuttle, will try that, the computer is in AZ, so doing this by email, IM and remote assistance.

Did find this, this AM on a outlook board, that creating a seperate profile then migrating into the new profile should work.

1. http://support.microsoft.com/default...roduct=out2003

2. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/as...771141033.aspx

But will try yours first.

[Murf]

Fixed, deleted registry entries pertaining to profiles, copied PST file from outlook 2000 to outlook 2003, over writing the one outlook made on the installtion. That fixed it.

Thanks