[itdiscuss] Outlook - making it easier

[Steve]

I read this on my MCP Magazine e-mail list...I thought it might help some
people out when machines are being upgraded and such...

Greg's Weekly quickTip: Losing All Contact
By Greg Shields

Not too long ago I moved my entire universe from my old computer to a new
one. Though the process was a lot easier than previous moves, I found one
item in particular to be missing. Specifically, I wanted to retain the
e-mail addresses in Outlook's drop-down menu when I typed them into the To:
field. Having used Outlook's autocomplete feature exclusively for years as
my primary mechanism for finding an address, starting with a blank slate had
me scrambling for contacts.

You see, an Outlook PST migration doesn't include those autocomplete
addresses. They're not stored within your Outlook PST. Instead they're
stored in a file with an .NK2 extension elsewhere in your profile. Making
this migration even more challenging is that the location of the NK2 in
Vista is different than where it was back on my old Windows XP machine.

For pre-Vista machines, the NK2 is stored in C:\Documents and
Settings\{UserName}\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook. What's interesting
is that this is not the place where Outlook PSTs are stored by default. For
pre-Vista machines, that location is C:\Documents and
Settings\{UserName}\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook, which
is a slightly different path that meanders its way through the Local
Settings folder.

On Vista machines, as you probably know, the path for profile information is
quite a bit different. Thus, the ultimate resting place for the NK2 is
different as well. For Vista, you'll want to deposit your NK2 into the
C:\Users\{UserName}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook folder. Once there,
Outlook will begin using that file again to populate the drop-down list.

While looking for this file, you may also want to look through it as well.
If you've been annoyed by the number and uselessness of certain addresses in
your drop-down list, you can eliminate them from this file to remove them
from your drop-down list. Doing this, however, is no trivial task. You can't
just open this file in Notepad.

To edit your NK2, download a freeware tool called NK2.Info. This tool shows
you the addresses stored in the file and allows you to add and remove
addresses as necessary. Another more fully featured, for-cost tool that
works for larger migrations is made by Ingressor Software.

Greg Shields, MCSE: Security, CCEA, is an independent author, instructor,
and consultant based in Denver, Colo. A contributing editor to Redmond
magazine, MCPmag.com and a popular speaker at TechMentor events, Greg?s
recent book Windows Server 2008: What's New/What's Changed, is now available
at www.sapienpress.com
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