Outlook pst file

[PaulIA]

As part of my personal unattended setup, I make a copy of my current Outlook.pst file (so that I don't lose all of my contacts, email, etc.) and then burn a fresh UA disc right before I reinstall my system.

During the unattended installation, I would like to restore this and have Outlook use it. I thought this would be as easy as copying the pst file back where I found it, but Outlook creates another copy when first started.

Of course, it's easy enough to get around this (just tell Outlook to use the other file), but I was wondering if anybody has found a way to make Outlook use the original file in unattended mode. I'm not sure whether I need to use the Microsoft Custom Installation Manager to do this or whether there is another trick.

I've searched the forum and Google but have not found a way that works. I found a couple of posts where people say "Oh yeah, this can be done" but then don't explain how to do it. I may not be looking in the right place, (I'm a newbie, you know) so please point me in the right direction if you can.

Thanks!

[InTheWayBoy]

I fight with this all the time, and sadly I don't think there is any magic fix. Here are two tips though:

1. The PST file only contains your data, it doesn't do anything for your other settings like email servers and such. So you'll need to figure out how to handle this as well. There are these PRF files that you can create with the Office Resource Toolkit, but I never had much success with those. They are essentially text files that tell Outlook how to configure things, but it really only seems to work best when used in an Exchange environment.

2. There is a hidden registry setting that tells Outlook where to look for a PST file. So instead of %USERPROFILE&\Local Settings\Microsoft\Outlook you can change it to anywhere. Initially I thought this would save the day, and I could just put the Outlook.PST file in a this place and it will automatically hook into it. However, from what I've seen in real life it doesn't do this, but instead will create a new file, Outlook2.pst or something to that effect. The reg key is:

HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\ForcePSTPath

[PaulIA]

Thanks for the reply and the tips. I'm going to keep working at this to see if I can come up with an answer. I guess I could replace the file AFTER outlook has created it's version, but then I'd have to AutoIt Outlook after the installation to get it to do that. Hmmm... seems like you could "trick" Outlook into thinking that it's already done the initial setup. I feel a long night with RegShot coming on...

[RJTPlomp]

For setting all the other things like server and profiles you can use the Office Resource Kit (ORK) to make a .MST. With that .MST file you can run custom installation of the Office .MSI file. Look for the Office Resource Kit on the microsoft site. See how that works. As I remember there are also some helpful pages that tell you how the use the ORK.

When you use Office 2003, you can use this.

Ro

Edited September 2, 2006 by RJTPlomp

[PaulIA]

@RJTPlomp: Thanks for the reply. I've been using ORK Tools to customize my office installation, but I was hoping that there was some way that I could copy over my existing Outlook.pst file into my new setup. Alas, Microsoft doesn't seem to want to let me do this

I took a look at what happens when Outlook first starts up and after wading through 275 registry key changes capture with RegShot, I gave up thinking that I wanted to simulate this myself with a script.

AutoIt is looking really good right now...

[PaulIA]

Not sure if this will be of any use to anybody, but thought I would share it just in case. If you followed the above posts, you'll see that I was trying to get Outlook to use a backup copy of Outlook.pst. The problem is, it creates it's own copy the first time you log in and configure a default profile. After a few long nights, I just decided to let it do it's thing and then replace the Outlook.pst file that it created with my backup copy.

I've created an AutoIt script that can be run during my unattended installed that will fire up Outlook and step through creating a default POP3 account and thereby create the default Outlook.pst file. Modify the INI file for your particular profile setup. You can also modify the script itself to create an Exchange account if you need to.

You need to run this script in your cleanup section after the desktop is loaded (the Run command works well for this). After you run this script, just copy your backup Outlook.pst over the one Outlook creates.

Comments/suggestions are always welcome but remember that I only started using AutoIt last week.

Outlook.zip