Outlook express pet peeve #375
Migrating Outlook Express data from one machine to another. Addresses are easy to export… file export Address Book gives a good option to CSV (comma seperated value) output. Which is a nice common denominator. (WAB/PAB output wouldn’t hurt.) But, File, Export, Messages only let’s you dump your Outlook Express messages into Exchange/Outlook. (!) Now, this is a pet peeve I’ve had for sometime with Outlook Express. There are just too many places to tell people to look for their data.
The export Messages option could at least give the option to copy the mail folders to a drive somewhere for backup/transfer purposes…. instead you have to hunt through (depending on Windows release)….
C:\$$Windir$$\application data\identities\gosh awful string of information\Microsoft\Outlook Express
C:\$$Windir$$\Local settings\application data\identities\gosh awful string of information\Microsoft\Outlook Express
c:\documents and settings\$$USERNAME$$\application data\identities\gosh awful string of information\Microsoft\Outlook Express
c:\documents and settings\$$USERNAME$$\Local settings\application data\identities\gosh awful string of information\Microsoft\Outlook Express
In all cases the “gosh awful string of information” is the unique identifier that each “identity” get’s assigned, so if you have had multiple identities at some point you have to figure out which one is the current working, living install. (Tools, options, maintenance, store folder will tell, but that’s an intimidating string of letters and numbers…)
This isn’t my only annoyance with Outlook Express, but I think if I were writing a mail client, one of my first priorities would be to make sure that I could EASILY backup all of the data without a big hunting expedition. (Maybe even a nice menu option to export it some place useful.)
/rant…