Recover your Outlook 2Kx accounts

[ZWarrior]

Unfortunately our good friend M$ has locked us out of our account settings in Outlook 2K3 and beyond.  I have known about this and even a solution for it.  You have to export the registry settings for the user, but it is not easy to find.  However I lost the info that told me how to get it.

However, Google comes to the rescue once again.  I found the link and have posted an excerpt below:

Open your registry editor and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1343024091-507921405-725345543-1003\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook

Export the entire Outlook key to a file. You've now backed up your email accounts. To restore the backup to another computer, simply import the backup into the new computer's registry.


DuxAranea's method works perfectly for XP and Vista, but with one caveat: you must edit first the exported registry file to replace the user number (S-1-5-21..., etc.) from your old computer with the user number on the computer to which you are transferring the accounts. Use the find/replace option in notepad to make this simple.

You will also need to copy all of the .pst files from your "C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook" folder to an identical folder on the computer you're transferring to.

Note, I bolded and underlined the portion that is specific and different for each user.  You will have to figure this out yourself for your account.

Also note that the location stated for the .pst file is only the default location.  If you moved them somewhere else, make sure they are there BEFORE you import the registry settings and start Outlook.

[ZWarrior]

BTW, you can use
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook] to get the account settings as well.

Gotta love a hacker with a mission. 

[opiesilver]

What settings would you be trying to change in your account profile?

[ZWarrior]

It's all stored in binary so changing it is more work than it needs to be, but that is not the purpose for this.  This is so that you can migrate your accounts to a different computer.  By exporting this section of your registry you can move the account information (username, password, server information, etc) without having to re-input it on the destination computer.

The one caveate is that you need to have your .pst files in the same location on the destination computer as they were on the source computer, otherwise there will many and severe errors.

[ZWarrior]

BTW, you can use
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook] to get the account settings as well.

Update to this, you need to export [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles].  The leaves under it are the profiles you have on the system.  If you are like me and have several, one for home, one for traveling (since Cox won't let me access my SMTP servers at home), and one for work then you can export them all in one go from this location.

[ZWarrior]

The updated registry path for Outlook 2010 is as follows:

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook