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How do I recover Outlook 2003 Rules and Alerts

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I have a complete copy(not boot able) of a previous installation of windows. I forgot to export my Rules and Alert settings before reinstalling windows and I am trying to figure out if I can recover my Rules and Alert settings so I don’t have to recreate them. Does anyone know how to recover the settings?

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Clarifications

In reply to How do I recover Outlook 2003 Rules and Alerts

Clarifications

re: recover Outlook 2003 Rules and Alerts

In reply to How do I recover Outlook 2003 Rules and Alerts

If you have access to the drive from the new installation (ie: you can plug it in and read the data from it), you can import the rules and alerts from the PST file on the old drive. It SHOULD be located in either C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook —OR— C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook … depending on where you may have configured Outlook to store the file.

To import, start Outlook, click File/Import, import from another program or file, next, personal folder (pst), next, click “do not import duplicates”, click browse and navigate to where the old PST may be stored and select it, next…. I can’t tell you exactly what the next screen looks like without going through it myself… but you should be able to select JUST the rules and alerts portion of the file and import it into the matching area of the Personal Folders area of the new Outlook file.

Previous versions of Outlook had different locations to store the files (.rwz file). Microsoft instructions say:

—snip—-

If you upgraded from a version of Outlook prior to Outlook 2002, you may have a .rwz file on your computer hard disk drive. The file is no longer needed and the rules information is now kept on the server for Microsoft Exchange e-mail accounts, and within the personal folders file (.pst) for POP3 and IMAP e-mail accounts. You can delete the file.

If you use the rules import or export feature, the default location for .rwz files is drive:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents.

—-end snip——

Did not work for me

In reply to re: recover Outlook 2003 Rules and Alerts

I have already ran the import and pulled in all of the folders and data. It did not import the rules and alerts.

I tried it again as you said to and I did not see any option to select rules and Alerts.

I tried to search for rwz files but did not find any in the profile, and that makes sense if they did away with it in 2003 because it was originally installed as 2003 and was not upgraded.

I think I should have exported the rules and alerts first before I did a clean install of windows.

Oh and the email has always been POP3 no exchange server was ever used.

Any other suggestions.

You might try

In reply to Did not work for me

If you can locate the old PST file, you might try File/Open to bring it into the current installation of Outlook. At this point, you’ll have more than one PST file open. Then, look to see if the rules are available. IF they are, export them using the rules import/export wizard, then right click and close the PST file that you just opened. Once you’re back to normal, try importing the rules you just exported.

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