[ThomasF]

Hi!

I really would appreciate if you could help me!

My old computer stopped working completely and I had to buy a new one. It came with Vista Home Basic pre-installed.

I have always been able to open old Outlook.pst files including the last time I upgraded my old computer to XP. Unfortunately the latest info remains on the old hard drive, but I have an old copy of Outlook.pst on a server on Microsoft’s Skydrive.

But I can’t open it!

Whether I try to open it from the server or copy it to the hard drive and try to open it from there, the result is the same: Outlook creates a new E-mail with the file as an attachment. When I try to open the attachment, it creates a new E-mail with the file as attachment.

There is no error messages.

I have a lot of important info in this file, like reminders and, most of all, names, addressees and E-mail to a lot of people and companies.

There is probably a compability issue here and I would gladly upgrade, but can’t afford it at this time. I have to stick to Office 2000.

Is there possibly a workaround to solve this problem?

Thank you and have a nice day/Thomas

[Mumbodog]

Do you have Outlook 2000 installed in Vista? If so did you get all the updates for Microsoft Office?

[ThomasF]

Thank you so much for your reply!

Yes, I have Office 2000 (incl. Outlook) installed in Vista. I assumed the updates were automatically installed like everything else. However I went to Office Update page and found a lot of updates, mostly security, but was unable to download anything. Every time I tried, the software said (roughly translated from Swedish): unable to find the expected version in the system. Very confusing.

I have downloaded Office 2000 from a CD and have done this several times, but something is wrong. Opening Outlook.pst is only one of strange things that happen. Archiving doesn't work either. Doing this manually makes Outlook crash.

But let's focus on Outlook.pst. Do you have any ideas?

Thank you and have a nice day/Thomas

[Mumbodog]

Outlook 2000 was never intended to be used in Vista, many issues with doing so, but I am not sure this is one of them, but it may be.

Read here about Outlook 2K on Vista

http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/vista.htm

but with more extensive use, additional issues may come to light

.

[ThomasF]

Hi! Thank you for your reply and the link!

I have carefully read the web page and it was not very uplifting.

However there seems to be a small possibility to come to some result by copying the wab to Vista. If I find the file on the CD, where should I put it? I am just an amateur and don't know about these things.

Actually I read somewhere that it would be possible to rename the wab32 files in Vista to wab. What do you think? Would this help or will it cause problems?

Sure I can begin to use the E-mail and other applications in Vista, although I like Outlook, but what I would need right now is to enter the info in this old Oultlook.pst file. After I have that info, I can plant it somewhere else.

Please bare with me, this is very important to me. Do you have any additional suggestions?

Thank you and have a nice day/Thomas

[Mumbodog]

I would not rename any Vista files.

That WAB thing was to deal with an error when you install Outlook 2k on Vista, I don't think it will help your particular situation. I don't think there is a solution for you, other than using an XP PC with Oulook 2000 installed to read thise pst files, or upgrade your Outlook to at least 2003.

.