Backing-Up the Address Book

Okay, what's the problem here? I'm not an Outlook Express user, but I'm trying to help out a friend who's got XP-Home and Outlook Express 6 on his laptop. It's been working fine, but he wants to back-up his address book because he's got 872 good contacts and, now that he's got it organized, he'd rather not lose them.

I've read all the threads about backing up the address book, and I know that the file should have a .wab extension, and that it's a hidden file. Searching on that, I find no files at all with that extension.

Yesterday I tried the recommended shareware called something like Outlook Express Freebie Backup, and while it backs up everything else in Outlook Express, it fails on the address book because it says the file name is too long (?!?).

I'd be happy to import his address book across the network and into my Mozilla file, where I can locate the file easily, but I don't have a CD burner on my system. That would mean I'd have to send that file back across the network to burn a backup, and that seems like a lot of brain damage to accomplish something that really ought to be fairly straighforward!

Any ideas??

 

Well, that sounded pretty easy, but unfortunately the File/Export option is greyed out and can't be selected. What does that signify?

Using Windows Explorer, I went hunting for the address book as suggested, and still don't find it. I can find all the shortcuts to the address book, but not the address book itself.

One thing I notice is that he's got 6 different identities on this computer (he needs at least 2) but only Administrator seems to have Application Data\Microsoft in it, and that doesn't contain an address book.

 

Personally, I used OTHER ADDRESS BOOK > TEXT (Comma Separated Values). It's the easiest way to do it!

 

Whew! Not that it was obvious (not that anything Micro$oft does is obvious) but I finally discovered how he came to have no *.wab files.

Under Tools\Options there is a choice he had made to "share" the address book with other applications. I don't know what other applications he might share the address book with, but but at some point (probably a default) that option was selected. Changing that created a *.wab file, and now I've got it saved to the network. From there it can be burned to a CD, and all will be safe.

Thanks!

 

You're right - probably Word. Not that he's done it, but he could... Fortunately, email requires no postage!