Recovering lost address book .

I have now found my address book.

 

Do you still have a file with a *.wab extension someplace on your hard disk?

For I'm not sure I understand your question completely.

 

And do a search for the wab32.dll file.
Do you still have that one?

 

You told me this in a PM:

"I have a wab32.dll file but cannot open it.
When I call for address book from start menu before I go to internet, I get an x in red background with a box that says ok. Don't know what that means"

It appears to indicate that it isn't there any longer.

First, close Outlook Express.
Now go to Start/Find/Files or Folders, and type the following in the 'named' box: *.wab (dont forget the asterisk and the period)

Does anything come up?

If so, right-click the file(s) with an extension of ".wab" and then click Rename .

Rename the file extension (the three right-most characters in the name) to "old" and press ENTER.

Start up OE. Can it find your address book now, when you go to Tools/Address Book?

If no joy, find the wab32.dll file, and rename it to Wab32.old.

Subsequently go to Control Panel and double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon.
Click the Windows Setup tab. In Components, click to remove the check mark next to Microsoft Outlook Express and click Apply.

If it isn't there, and you have an upgraded version of IE/OE, you may also find it on the Software tab.

After Outlook Express is removed, add the check mark back to Outlook Express and click Apply again. This will reinstall Outlook Express.

You'll need your Windows CD-ROM.

Or you can get it at the Windows Update site (Product Updates)

The Wab32.dll file will be replaced with a new copy.

Good luck,

 

Go to Internet Explorer, and click Tools/Windows Update.
On the Windows Update site, choose 'Product Updates'.

If you uninstalled OE in Programs Add/remove in Control Panel, you ought to find Outlook Express there as an available update.

For I assume you did uninstall OE the correct way?

 

Ok Tony, after five days of troubleshooting a newly restored computer, I read your thread on .wab and was able to restore my address book. Thank you. I posted a thread on this topic somewhere but I am new to list and can't find it.

I changed the default.wab file to default.old

I uninstalled outlook (the correct way) restarted.
Reinstalled. restarted.
Started outlook
Address book started -- Yeah!

But it is a brand new book. I need the one that has all my phone numbers in it. :-(

In C:\Program Files\Outlook Express I find WABFIND.DLL, WABMIG.EXE AND WABIMP.DLL

aLSO HAVE
DEFAULT.WAB
WAB32.DLL
WAB32RES.DLL
and many others

Kent Moore

PS I also cannot access the hotmail.com page through my browser at all (since my mail doesn't work I was going to access it through the web, but can't get the page to open.) AND now that outlook isback, I can;t get hotmail to pass the folders to my re-established mail accounts. But first, I want that address book.

Can u help?

 

You'll need to find your old address book, which is/was called prpbably something like kjzaz.wab, and import the data into the new one.

For that to work, you'll have to rename it to OldKjazz.wab.

It needs to have its wab extension restored for Outlook Express to recognize it.
If it's still called whatever.old importing it won't work.

Here's some info about importing/exporting OE data:

http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideoe5/backup/bu_simple.htm

 

Ok. I read the page on backups. Good stuff. I will Continue to study it. It is a wee bit over my head, but I think I can muddle through it in time.

No kjazz.wab file exists.

I tried to rename the wab32.dll file as shown in post above, but got an Access Denied error.

Did two searches:

search on wab yields:

OEWABlog.txt
OUTLWAN.DLL Win...system
default.wab C:\WINDOWS\...\...\ADDRESS BOOK
wkswab.dll Program F.\common\micro...\works shared
wab32res.dll Common files\SYSTEM
wab32.dLL Common files\SYSTEM
wab.exe Program files\OE
wabimp.dll Program files\OE
wabmig.exe " " \ "
wabfind.dll " " \ "

WFXPWAB.DLL (Symantex\WinFax)
WAB.CAB C:\windows update setup files 543KB Cabinet

And some wab files associated with VirusScan which I did not think are relevant here.

Search on *.wab yields:

Default.wab

Windows\Application Date\Microsoft\Address Book has default.wab, default.old and default.wa~ in it.


This is distressing because I have hundreds of numbers in the old address book. Another source has told me that the OLD book is SOMEWHERE on the HD, since I have not deleted it, and have not saved any new info to the HD. Hopefully one of the files above will reveal something that may work.

Tks,
Kent Moore
[email protected]

 

I'm afraid I can't tell you where you address book has gone.

Of the files you mention, the only one where you might possibly find anything is default.wab, but it will probably be empty.

It doesn't really matter now, but as you see it pays to back up your stuff, just in case...

 

OK. I have lost the address book before so I can deal with that. I didn't like those people anyway. ;-)

As it turns out, I did in fact make a back-up on my CDR. On the CD I have two files, default.wa~ 298KB and default.wab @ 350KB. I assume there is something on these files. (Just for grins, when I did this back-up on 4/18/01, my address book disappeared from the computer -- that was the first time I lost it. I concluded that a back-up was as risky as not doing one.)

Nonetheless, we can continue this thread if you have time to explain to me how to reload these saved files, how to "import" them (I'm guessing). Then maybe I can regain a few of the lost addresses and gain some knowledge about the whole back-up thing.

Tks,
Kent Moore

 

Okay! Grab that wab on the CD- the most recent one... (following is probably not necessary but.... put it somewhere on the harddrive). Open your blank address book. Click File-Import-Address Book(WAB). Browse to your backed up wab file and Click Open. Follow any further instructions.
You should have all your addresses back. If your stuff was organized into folders it will probably not be organized that way any more but it beats a blank address book.
Hope this helps....

 

I created a folder named "backedup" in

c:\WINDOWS\APPLICATION DATE\MICROSOFT\ADDRESS BOOK\BACKEDUP

Opened D: and dragged default.wab (with icon that looks like a book) to the folder BACKEDUP

Checked and the file was there.

Went to Outlook File\Import\Address Book

Received Prompt: "An error occurred during the import process. The import process could not be completed."

Tried three times: same response occurred.

Kent

 

Ok,
This may or not may help. I was trying to export mine the other day & got the same message. I ended up copying my .wab to the desktop and opened it and it exported just fine from there. (then deleted the one on the desktop)
Did you change your restored file's to not be Read-only? (right click on file-properties-uncheck Read Only). Just a long shot....

 

I was able to open my backed up address book after i discovered that on the Cd, it was marked as an archived file, but when it transfered into the hard drive, it became a read only file. I checked off ARCHIVE and tried to import again.

Import complete. I now have all my addresses back. Piece o' cake.

Thanks,
Kent Moore

http://members.sibeliusmusic.com/kmoore

 

Great!
just make sure your restored address book is not read-only so you can add to it.