Backup and Restore
The Partial Backup
Backing up Selected Identity Settings
Some user settings that are Identity-specific cannot be backed up using the
built-in tools in OE. Message Rules, Blocked Senders, Signatures and Custom Views
are all stored in the Windows registry, and so must be backed up manually.
- In Regedit, navigate to this key:
|--HKEY_CURRENT_USER
|-----Identities
|--------{GUID}
|-----------Software
|--------------Microsoft
|-----------------Outlook Express
|--------------------5.0
where GUID is the Global Unique IDentifier for your Identity.
- Under that key, you will find the following sub-keys, among others:
|-----------------------Block Senders
|-----------------------Rules
|-----------------------Signatures
- In the left-hand pane, click on each sub-key and then click , and save the selected branch to
your hard disk as type *.reg. Note that the
sub-key contains both message rules and custom
views.
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Restoring Selected Identity Settings
To restore the keys at a later time, you must first determine the GUID of your
new Identity. Do this by opening Regedit and navigating to
|--HKEY_CURRENT_USER
|-----Identities
|--------{GUID}
Click on each {GUID} sub-key to see the
value in the right-hand pane. When you find the correct Identity, on the {GUID} sub-key, click , then press to copy
the name to the clipboard. Now press the key.
Do not rename the key! Close Outlook Express, and
you are now ready to begin the restore process.
- For each registry file (*.reg) that you saved
in your backup, open the *.reg file in Wordpad and
change all occurrences of the old {GUID} with the {GUID} of your current Identity
(now you know why I had you copy the {GUID} to the clipboard). Save the edited
file, making sure it is still saved as type *.reg
and not *.txt.
- In Regedit, delete the keys you wish to restore, making sure you are deleting
the ones below your Identity's {GUID} keys.
- Double-click the saved *.reg keys.
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Backing up Selected Mail Folders
This section describes two techniques to back up and restore a single mail folder or several at a time.
This can be a useful way of creating archived message folders. (For a somewhat
simpler approach to OE archives, see this
tip). These techniques can also be used to transfer a mail folder from one
computer to another, although care must be taken that no existing folder in OE
has the same name as the folder being transferred. If you wish to transfer many
folders, it is best to use the second technique below.
Single Folder
Create an Archive Folder
- Create a new Mail Folder in Outlook Express named . Move the messages you wish to archive into the folder,
then close OE.
- Copy the file Archive.dbx from your store
folder onto your backup media.
- Open OE and delete the file Archive.dbx.
Restore an Archive.dbx
- Create a new Mail Folder in OE named and
open the folder at least once! This is required to force OE to create a
corresponding Archive.dbx file.
- Close OE and delete the newly-created Archive.dbx file.
- Copy the backup of Archive.dbx into the OE
store folder.
- Open OE.
Multiple Folders
Create an Archive Identity
- Create a new Identity and import the folders you wish to archive by clicking
,
then clicking your Identity. Click to locate the store folder of the new archive
Identity.
- Copy the entire store folder to your backup media.
- You can now delete the OE mail folders from your original Identity. Delete
the Archive Identity itself using before you delete its store folder from your hard disk.
Restore the Archive
- If your archive store is on CD or a zip disk, copy it to your hard disk. OE
must have write-access in order to import, so be sure none of the *.dbx files in the store are set to read-only.
- In OE, click , then to the
archive store folder.
- Select to import either or
.
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