Move Outlook .pst files from old XP computer to new Vista computer

[Viditi]

I am not good in technology. By reading my title you must have figure out what I am trying to do here. I work from my home and now shifted to a new place. There are PC available on new location. I need help to move my .pst files from Outlook to the new system. Now my system has Windows XP and on that I am using Office 2003. The system has new place has Windows Vista and Office 2007 in that. I have lots of events in calendar and contacts saved in Outlook. It would not be worth for me to carry the full system as I need something at my home. From last couple of days I am trying to locate some way by which I can migrate all the data from Outlook 2003 to Outlook 2007. The way that I had seen is manually copy pasting .pst files from \Documents and settings\<user>\Local to Windows Vista system. I had backup all the data using Backup Wizard and there is all detail available in that. I had backup everything through that. I copied the backup file in a usb. Then pasted that in Windows Vista computer. But it is not able to read that old .pst file. What I can do know. Backup Wizard also helps to restore the old pst files in Vista. It automatically puts the file to location. But it is not at all reading it.

[AtulXP]

About which backup wizard you are talking about. And if you had moved the .pst files from default folder then there are chances of of getting those email lost. You must not do that that. The best thing is copying the data instead of moving it permanently. Just copy the .pst file in the default of outlook folder of Vista. There is quiet a big difference between XP and Vista files. If you are not aware about the proper process then I will recommend you to look on the Microsoft Help center.

[Viditi]

Thanks for the reply. Somehow I had managed to built my calendar, contact folder and other emails manually. It is working fine now. I can receive emails and send also. I hope not to get any error in future.

[DhavalD]

What I know that it is almost impossible to migrate data from Outlook to any other operating system. This had became impossible due to low support. The backup and restore wizard cannot help you much. But there are certain third party apps that can simply guide you for the migration.

[Viditi]

Thanks for the reply. Through Microsoft Knowledge base I had found some informative links that help med to migrate my emails. That worked and somehow I get all the data back. But the issue lies with my contacts. I cannot lose them at any cost. I had divided the contacts in 4 folders inside Outlook. When I migrated the content to new system they all are combined to single. There is no folders inside the new system. It is a bit messy to find or bifurcate each of them one by one. All the contacts are messed and also there are some missing. So it looks that migration is not good for contacts. To separate them I have to create the folders one by one on my own and move them. Thanks to my old computer which is still working. I can get all the details from that. I had printed the contacts and now doing things manually. I had also notice one thing. The contacts are not well organized. Somehow the names are messed up. This looks bug with migration. I was also having a personal folder in outlook where I had kept some mails. But after migrating there is nothing found like that. I am getting a error on screen saying that Outlook cannot find this file. It keeps on appearing on launch and it is very irritating.

[Jasseen]

The option provided by DhavalD worked a bit for me. I found a application called as Easy Transfer Wizard. It help me to migrate many things from old computer but that is not working fully.

[Roehita]

Easy Transfer is not compatible with Outlook. Especially when there are two different computers with different version of operating system in them. It is recommended that you use simply copy paste method by copying the .pst folde from old system to new in the exact location. Then launch Outlook and create a new profile. Later on add the old mails. That would help.

[Viditi]

Roehita I am not quiet sure what you are talking about. I will like to highlight my problem in more detail. I think this will help a lot to put more highlight on the migration issue. My friend did the same and he said it worked for him. Let see in detail what he did. To see the .pst file in Explorer you have to fist enable show hidden files from Folder Options. I am taking about Vista here. And if you are not aware about the exact process you can launch a search process for *.pst files by pressing Ctrl + F in Explorer. Remember to include hidden files in that. In outlook all the files which are either mail, contact or calender are in the form of .pst files. This format is common for Windows XP and Windows 7 also. Find those files. If you had shared the similar files with others then you have to search for *.pab files. The one thing he told me is the folder path of both operating system is different, because of which we can get error while manually copy pasting the data. It is necessary to find the exact folder path before doing the migration.

Copy all .pst of your old pc and keep it somewhere. In Windows Vista the location most probably is like this -- \Users\your user name\my outlook\outlook.pst. Do not cut paste that. Once copied launch outlook. At this point in my system Outlook is not able to find the Personal Folder Files even though I had copied everything. A number of contacts and events in calender are also merged. There are number of forums that I had checked to find the exact answer. But due to different version the issue looks to be common.

[AliaShaikh]

I can provide you a simple way of doing this. Launch Outlook and first setup your emails account. Once you are done exist Outlook. Now copy and paste the .pst files from old computer to the new one. The location for that is C:\Users\yourfolderaccountname\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\. You have to modify the name of folder yourfolderaccountname same as it was in XP. Now paste the .pst file and check once again.

[Tharaa]

The older version is not compatible with Vista to some extent. I had faced this thing when I tried to get my Office 2000 mails to Vista. But Office 2003 is full compatible with Vista. This must not be buggy at all.

[hunterabq]

I too am not a techie, but I have tried copying .pst and then opening, "Open" via menu, etc. Finally got folders, but cannot respond to e-mail or create address book as "wab.dll" cannot be found.

Microsoft says to reinstall outlook express?!?!?! I am using Outllook 2000, and moving it over from a XP to Vista machine. But no address book, signature, etc.

Copied backup, moved it over and renamed, then reopened. All I got was other copy of folders.

How to get address book back?

[ZaidaB]

All issue lies with the compatibility. The below link can put more highlight on the issue you are facing.


Description of the versions of Office that are supported on Windows Vista

[Skipper46]

Hi Non-techie but desperate for help. I have Windows 7 rather than Outlook but have a problem of getting my outlook.pst file from my old XP computer to the new Windows 7 one. I have followed MS instruction to copy the Outlook.pst file to a hard drive but no matter what location I copy from and what external media I use to copy to I get the error message unable to copy file as there is not enough disc space. The óutlook.pst file is some 6.6GB and I have been trying to copy to a near empty 500GB external hard drive so I find this message imcomprehensible- this also occurred when I tried to copy to a 8GB memory stick. Any suggestions would be most welcome on what might be causing this probelm as it stops me completely from doing anything on my new computer with my old emails.

Thanks

Dave P

[Vespera]

In which format is your external hard drive? Is it NTFS or FAT32? To check this, right click on the drive, go to Properties and look for what it says NTFS or FAT32? If it is in FAT32 then that is actually creating you the problem. You need to format your drive to NTFS for successful file transfer. In FAT32, a file size should not be more than 4 GB.

[Skipper46]

Many thanks for this - just shows my lack of knowledge - this would explain things. Will reformat and try again. Thanks so much. Cheers