OUTLOOK EXPRESS

Looking at my monitor... thinking about picking a new task and then writing about it. But, unfortunately, nothing better is coming to the mind. Suddenly I got this idea of writing a text on OE to satisfy my thirst of spreading knowledge. I know that this will not keep the thirst off longer.

The subject this time is backing-up MS OE data (email folders & identities data in registry). This data backup process is two fold, creating a backup of mail folders (i.e. *.dbx files) and your user identities in OE (which includes identity name, message rules, blocked senders list, etc).

This whole process is very simple and make possible the complete restoration of all your mails even if your Windows crashes. Remember that backing only email data without registry items is almost useless (you will learn why once your system crashes and you only have this semi-backed up data).

BACKING UP EMAIL FOLDERS

1.    Go to C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Identities

2.    There you will see many alpha-numeric folders.

3.    Copy them or zip them to another place for backup and restoration.

4.    Best way would be to create an archive and store it on another drive, presumably another physical drive.

5.    If you want to learn which exactly is your email folder. Go to TOOLS > OPTIONS > MAINTENANCE > STORE FOLDER in OE.

BACKING UP IDENTITY, RULES, ETC. DATA IN REGISTRY

1.    Open the registry editor (START > RUN > type REGEDIT)

2.    Go down to :

        HKeyCurrentUser>Identities

3.    In Registry Menu, click on Export Registry File.

4.    In the dialog box specify name and location. Make sure you export only SELECTED BRANCH (i.e. H_Key_Current_User>Identities)

5.    Click on save.

RESTORING

1.    Copy or extract the backup to this location:

            C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Identities

2.    Execute the registry backup (by double clicking it) to update or add backed up information to the registry.

That's it. We are done with creating a backup and learned its restoration. This small text covers two MS Knowbase articles. BTW, I have developed this method all by myself. I looked MS KB articles for a better workout but surprisingly it was same as my method. The only difference was that the KB articles were loooonnng.

This ends another small text. I am sorry I have not been able to keep up the references for this text. So any one looking for same thing but with jargons can browse  www.microsoft.com.

FYI: French don't use the word 'e-mail' (they think that it is ruing the French). Instead they prefer the word Courrier Electronique or Courriel.

This text is written by Sheikh M. Taimur
Designed at 1024 x 768 resolution and is dedicated to my parents (as usual).