PCTech Forums

Hi pdeinc here's some info for you to read ...

If you don't have an Exchange Server mailbox, all your Outlook data resides in a .pst file. Someday, you might want to move that file to another folder on your computer. To locate your main .pst file, right-click the Outlook Today folder and choose Properties. (If the .pst file you want to move isn't your main data store, right-click the top level of the hierarchy instead of Outlook Today.) In the Properties dialog box, click the Advanced button to see the filename and path for your .pst file. You can't change the path in that dialog box, but knowing the path gives you enough information to locate and move the .pst file manually. Close Outlook; you might have to wait a couple minutes to make sure that it shuts down completely. Next, go to the location that the Properties dialog box specified and move the .pst file to a new location on your computer. When you restart Outlook, the application will prompt you for the file's new location.

If you don't see the .pst file in the folder that Outlook Today's Properties dialog box pointed to, you're probably using Windows XP or Windows 2000, which consider .pst files to be system files and hide them by default. Open Windows Explorer, and choose Tools, Folder Options. On the View tab, select "Show hidden files and folders." After you close the dialog box, you should be able to see the .pst file in the folder. If you know where the .pst file resides, you can move it, back it up, or copy it to a new machine when you upgrade. However, before you perform any of these operations, you must shut down Outlook.

Quoted from:
http://www.winnetmag.com/Windows/Articl ... 24017.html


Cactus

Cactus, I appreciate your quick response, but I think you missed my question. I'm not trying to find my mailbox files, I have my pst folder on a cd that I want to transfer into my home computer, running XP with both Outlook Express and Opera M2 mail client. Apparently MS in their infinite wisdom chose for OE not to be able to read from PST folders.

So my question in a nutshell is: how do I transfer my PST files in OE or Opera?

Outlook can't open the .pst file from the disc. Outlook requires write access to any .pst file. Therefore, to open the file, you must copy it from the CD-R to your hard disk, open the copied file's properties, and clear the read-only setting.

Cactus

I was reasonably certain I had already tried that but had forgotten the problem. When I try to select Outlook from the 'Import Messages' query, it responds with 'unable to import from MAPI client'. That's why I couldn't simply import my pst folder into OE.

So now the question could be why not? If Outlook is on the dropdown list for message import, why do I get the MAPI response? Is there something set for mail handling on this computer that needs to be changed? Currently mail is handled by Opera but OE works for my POP account as well. Is Outlook a MAPI client?

Yes OE is a MAPI client. Try changing your default email handler to OE, reboot and try again.

I believe the error message was 'Unable to import FROM mapi client', meaning OE could not import from Outlook. Hence my question "Is Outlook (not OE) a MAPI client?"

And I don't know that OE isn't the default mail handler. When I open OE, it automatically downloads my mail from my POP server, so that makes me think it is.

Your PST file you created was from MS Office Outlook. You cannot import a PST into Outlook Express. They are two different animals

Outlook Express is part of Windows explorer. Outlook is part of Microsoft Office. You need to install MS Office and then import the PST

And it was all so easy! Mozilla Thunderbird can import Outlook's PST files, no problem! All I had to do was install Thunderbird on the machine that had Outlook as well as the one that I wanted the files to reside on. Import the PST on the machine with Outlook, then move the Thunderbird's data files onto the new PC, bingo!

Hope this helps someone else.