How do you move Outlook files to another computer?

I’ve been helping a neighbour set up their new machine and I’m now struggling to transfer email, contacts etc from Outlook on the old machine. Both machines are XP Home with Office 2003.

I tried just swapping the .pst file with the one from the old machine and it has worked to a fashion, in that all the email and contacts are now in the new Outlook. It's also been possible to send and receive ok, but the problem is that we're getting occasional errors and lockups. The contacts only show in one section of Outlook but can’t be accessed from other buttons that used to bring them up to select from.

Any Outlook experts out there that knows of a good tutorial on how to do a proper Microsoft Import/Export. I’ve had a go at this but I can see it’s not going to be simple and I just don’t have the time to teach myself from the manual. Or perhaps there is a freeware app available?

The Address Book has never been used and shows nothing in it in both machines, so I only need to transfer email, contacts and possibly settings "“ is there anything else?

One point that might have relevance is the old machine had Norton Anti-Virus and the new has Kaspersky. The thought occurs that Norton has changed some settings in Outlook and they have been transferred in the .pst file. If settings do need to be transferred using the Import/Export function could this still be a possible problem?

Thanks.

 

Hi Steve, thanks for the quick reply.
The first paragraph of that article states it’s only for "Outlook with the Internet Mail Only option" which does not show on her machine as described. At the end of the article it says it’s only for Outlook 98 and 2000.

I’ve already worked through some of the methods described here and keep coming across many options and questions that are just not made clear enough for me. Some I completed and they seemed to work ok. Others threw up a bewildering array of options that I could not fathom. I’m sure I could figure it all out given time, but I can’t spare a couple of days just now. Besides, I know it will sap my will to live.

 

Hi Steve, seems Outlook 2003 only has one mode, so don’t know if any instructions for "˜Mail Only mode’ would be relevant.

There are no useful error messages with the problems. When it won’t send email you get the usual message that the smtp server could not be found, (Outgoing AV checking turned off). When typing an email address in the address bar you can’t delete back, either with back space or by highlighting and clicking Delete or hitting the delete key "“ nothing works. When things lockup it can sometimes lock Explorer and shutting Outlook down via Task Manager refreshes the desk top as well.

I’ve since turned off Kaspersky’s integrated Anti-Spam filter and it seems to be now behaving itself - but time will tell. Perhaps that was the issue, perhaps something confliction with Norton settings that were transferred. Do you know if settings are held in the .pst file.

There is an error message when you try to access Contacts by the drop down box in the New Mail window. It says something like can’t find the folder. But opening contacts from the main button displays them exactly as on the old machine. At present this is the only issue left and no big deal, I can take my time to figure that one out.

Thanks for your help.