DualMonitors

RE: Outlook 2007 (been using since around 3/07); before that, had the previous version for several years. My Outlook's calendar is missing chunks of dates (many months). I understand that Outlook has a "current" type of working file that it uses, and an "archive" file that it uses. between those two, you're supposed to have everything, ALL your history. for some reason, my "calendar archive" is missing substantial chunks of historical information - like years and months. i use the Outlook Calendar almost like a diary. It is very helpful for me to recall events merely by going back on my Outlook Calendar. i have numerous ".pst" files that i, as a non-computer specialist, in a probably poor fashion, tried to perform what i believed to be "back ups". it was my little effort to be "safe". apparently, it has now resulted in confusion. on the other hand, should some of those numerous so called "back up .pst files" that i did perform from time to time result in me finding my missing years or months of calendar information, maybe it was a good thing that i've done after all. i do not know how to properly pull out the calendar info from those files, properly and intelligently consolidate it all into ONE master "archive calendar", and how to integrate it back into my current Outlook that I use. of course, it won't integrate back into my CURRENT outlook folder, it will integrate back into the "archive" folder that my current Outlook uses (as mentioned above, anyone's current Outlook uses only TWO files: one for current stuff, and one for anything that is deemed by the user as archive stuff). as you ladies and gentlemen can tell, I am trying but I'm not an IT expert. So, I've devised what I belive to be one solution sort of "step by step", but I hesitate to proceed before asking the gurus here to see if my "plan" is sound. Please kindly see my "plan" below and inform me of what needs to change, or, alternatively, please tell me what other plan i should do in order to resolve my big Calendar issue. Thank you so much in advance! My "Plan" to find missing months/years of Outlook Calendar historical information: Outlook Calendar Resolution Steps My Outlook Calendar does NOT have a complete, uninterrupted archive history. Periods (months and years may be missing). There are numerous ".pst" backup files that I've made using the Export function over the past years - they were my "non sophisticated" way of trying to be safe and do back ups of my very valuable Outlook Calendar information. Goal: Find and Clean up and merge the various Calendar files into ONE CALENDAR file. "Put" new Single Calendar file with ALL historical Calendar items into current Outlook and archive PROPERLY. STEPS: 1. Identify ALL ".pst" files in the 2 drives where they are: Drives F and H (F = Documents Drive; H = Documents Backup Drive) 2. EXPORT each of these ".pst" files' CALENDAR portion ONLY to a Desktop Folder named "Calendars Outlook" 3. Establish a 2nd User with Administrative Rights on Vista. Open Outlook as 2nd User. Use Outlook in a LIMITED fashion to… (next step) 4. PROPERLY merge all these calendars into ONE single calendar WITHOUT duplication USING 2nd User identity under Vista (I do not currently know how to establish a 2nd user in Vista w/administrative rights yet; nor do i currently know how to open up Outlook and use it in a Limited fashion (under the 2nd user name) to perform this merging of Calendar fashion) 5. Put this new CONSOLIDATED calendar back into my current Outlook (in the archive file, not in the current file) 6. Properly Archive Outlook so ONE SINGLE Archive Calendar will have ALL historical Calendar information

Gentlemen/Ladies: I have been a long time user of Outlook and have been using this 2007 version since around February of this year. Several days ago, the rectangular "buttons" on the left side below the tree (Mail, Calender, Contacts) sort of stopped working in that when I select Calender and go back to Mail, the main right hand preview panel continues to display the calender and the item "Calender" in the tree on the left is highlighted - only when I use the mouse to click on "Inbox" at the tree, would I be able to view my Mail items. I have no idea what that was the case and, while trying to "fix" it, I had inadvertently gone way down on the tree to the Archive Folder section, right clicked on the Archive Calender, and deleted it from the pop up menu when I right clicked on Archive Calender. Outlook is ESSENTIAL for me. Everything I do is on it to keep me on track. The Calender is important for me as it is almost a diary for me to remember what I did years ago - quite effective for me. May I kindly as the good folks here how I might be able to retrieve my Archive Calender? The item on the tree (under Archive Folders) called Archive Calender is no longer there. I'm quite distressed that I no longer have access to my calender past around 6 months ago. As a related question, I'd like to ask how best to back up my Outlook (everything, including Calender, Mail, Contacts)? I do use Acronis to do automatic back up but whenever i look at those Acronis "automatic back up" files for Outlook, they do not look familiar (they have names like 2007_11_10..._.TIB). I do not know what ".TIB" files are and how to really "use them" to either open up or to view. When I had my Archive Calender still visible on the tree, it was pretty easy whenever I needed to view older items: merely click on the words Archive Calender on the tree, then the right hand side's Preview area would show the older items, sometimes in a different shade of color to differentiate from the "regular" current calender. I can look for whatever event or appointment, then close it and go about my daily business. Sorry for combining 2 different issues in one post, but they are quite inter-related. (Accidentally deleting Archive Calender - how to retreive it? And, how to effectively back up Outlook 2007 - everything, from Calender, to Contacts, and Mail). Thank you very much in advance! Happy New Year!

More details on how it won't work with the Advanced tab either: In Contacts "mode", you have all the contacts on the right pane. you go to Tools at the top, the dropdown menu's 2nd option is Instant Search. the pull out menu to the right when you hover over the Instant Search shows multiple options where the last one is Advanced Find. when you select Advanced Find, you get a new pop up window. in that window, there are 3 tabs. the first tab is Contacts, the 2nd tab is More Choices, the 3rd tab is Advanced. the 1st tab (Contacts) does not seem to work for me at all as there is no such option for searching the "Notes" section. the 3rd tab, Advanced, asks you to start with defining a "Field" with a Field dropdown menu. However, when you drop down that menu, there is NO "notes" field. The option called "All Note Fields" has a pull out menu that allows you to select Contact, maybe that's the right one? or, alternatively, one other Field in the field dropdown is "Frequently Used Fields" where you can choose either Contacts or simply Notes. both sound correct to me. please realize that "Note" is probably incorrect but "Notes" is probably correct since the section in Contacts at the bottom where i put all my notes is actually called "Notes" plural. I suspect that "Note" is that other Outlook functionality called Note for taking notes. in any case, i've tried using that Advanced find and tried various Fields options but they do not work. i really really need this function badly for what i do daily and am really stumped. any help would be most appreciated. thank you!

Gentlemen/Ladies: i've been a long time user of Microsoft Outlook (maybe over 10 years) and have long found the Notes section of the Contacts to be useful. i would put in keywords that would help me find/remember the contact by, i.e. John Smith, in the Notes section, i might write Joe Smith's brother, or Computer expert. Typically, i would simply type in Joe Smith and every contact where anywhere containing Joe Smith would show up, and of course, John Smith would show up as well since i wrote in his Notes section, Joe Smith's brother. in the past couple of weeks, for some reason, i haven't used my search function much. but for the past 3 days, i cannot get the Search function to find anything at all in Contacts!! this is a KEY functionality for me. i have over 1500 contacts and it is very useful for me to be able to zero in on certain people. i've tried researching this for hours to no avail. i might have inadvertently hit a key to the left or right of the keyboard and that might have changed some important setting? i would greatly appreciate any help. thank you so much in advance!

i purchased a new digital camera and made some avi files to test it. saved them to a file on my hard drive. when i double click an avi, Windows Media Player does NOT open up, yet, the sound of the avi starts, so obviously, something is "playing", but there is nothing on my monitor to show that, and there is not WMP interface displayed (no image of the avi is playing, ONLY the sound). may i please ask how to resolve this? FYI: i have a dell computer, something like 2.2GHz, an Nvidia video card with 1 dvi and 1 vga output, a samsung 21.3" LCD connected to the vga output, and a dell 24" (16:10) LCD connected to the dvi output. i tried to re-download WMP 10 from Microsoft, which was successful, but the situation is almost the same: that is, the sound comes on, NO WMP interface visible (no controls), but on my secondary LCD (the 21.3" Samsung), the avi starts to play in FULL screen mode (no controls of any sort visible). the only way to "get out" of this is to click the WMP icon near my start button at the bottom of the screen, and when WMP opens up, THEN, the avi starts OVER again from the beginning! Of course at this point, i then have the various controls (start/stop/fast forward...etc) available to me. i have no idea what's going on! any help would be most appreciated. thank you in advance!