Restoring Outlook Express Address Book

Hi

I have just had to reinstall Win98 on a pc which had been infected by a virus.
I copied the *.dbx and .wab files to a backup and have now restored them to the rebuilt system. The *.dbx folders have appeared perfectly ok in the "new" Outlook Express but I cannot find any of the contacts in the Address Book. The .wab file obviously has data in it because it is 356Kb in size compared with the much smaller blank one which installed with the fresh version of OE.
Is there anyway in which I can restore the Address Book back to the new system so that the contact details will be visible?

Regards


Tim

 

Tim Walls--if you do not get any better advice here are two references
From PC World
"Address Book contains an easy export/import feature, which you'll find on its File menu. But the feature doesn't work very well. If you use Address Book folders to organize your contacts, importing an address book will wipe out that organization.

Instead, copy the address book file from the old computer to the new one. Where Outlook Express keeps the address book and what it names the file vary from one PC to another. To find yours, select Start, Search, For Files or Folders (or Find, Files or Folders) and enter *.wab in the 'Search for files or folders named' (or Named) text box. If the search unearths just one, that's the one you want. If it finds more than one, you'll have to figure out which option is your address book. The correct file is likely named after you, with a designation such as 'Bradford.wab'. Double-click the file to read its contents, if you like.

After you have searched both of the PCs, copy the .wab file to either a removable or a network drive on the old computer, and then move it to the new PC. Give the file the same name as the new computer's existing .wab file, and place it in the same folder so that it replaces the .wab file used by your new computer's Outlook Express. "

and

http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideOE/faqs/how.htm#movewab
Note the proper directory for WAB is C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft

 

Welshjim

Thanks for your suggestion.
Unfortunately when I click on the *.wab which I am trying to restore it appears with no data in it (visible that is) although as I said before it is 300 + kb in size. I have also tried editing the registry as per advice. No luck.

Any further help would be gratefully received. I had no trouble at all with the OE folders!

Regards


Tim

 

Tim Walls--When you open the .wab file and seem to get a blank page, do you have a left hand pane that offers one or more folders with names like Shared Contacts, yourname, etc.? If so, click on one of the folders and perhaps the addresses will appear.

 

Tim, how many wab files did you save off of the old computer. I hope one was a wab.exe. from C\Program Files\Outlook Express. If you didn't save that one, you could be up a tree.

When I searched for wab, I found two. One with my name on it & one elsewhere that said wab.exe. The one with my name on it was blank, just like yours Tim. The other one (Wab.exe) had all the info in it that comes up when I open my address book from Outlook Express. It's located in C\Program Files\Outlook Express.

Try re-naming the existing one in the Outlook Express folder to old, then replace it with your backed up wab.exe that has all the info you want. It must be a wab.exe that you replace it with, not a Tim Walls.wab. If this don't work, you can always reverse the situation.

Deloris.

 

Deloris

I think you may have hit the problem. I did not backup the wab.exe file, ergo I am sunk! You live and learn I am afraid.
Thank you for help. I will know in future.

Best wishes

Tim

 

Tim,

You're welcome, just wish the results had been better.


Sorry to hear that you didn't save it. I had hoped you had. Hopefully all your friends will write you & you can add them back as they do.

I did that once too. Reformatted without saving Wab.exe, or printing out my address book. I had to wait for everyone to send me something. Not everyone did, but the most important ones did, so I came out alright.

I would suggest copying & saving both wab files to extenal media in the future, because the one with your name on it, I think is used for entering your profile, although I am not sure about that. I just know all the addresses are in the wab.exe.

Good Luck to ya!

Deloris

 

Maybe this . . .

Tim,

Where did you save your address book? Floppy, what?

I had a similar problem. I saved my address book to a floppy before I did a format not too long ago. After I put it on the floppy I checked it twice to make sure all my information was there because I have had to regain it all the hard way, on the phone. Both expensive and embarrassing.

When I tried to put it back in, the computer wouldn't read the info on the floppy but our other computer could.

Long story short - after installing Windows 98SE and IE5, no joy. After upgrading to the IE version I was running at the time of the format (OE5.01), voila!, the computer could read the floppy and the 'import' went flawlessly.

I don't know if this is your situation but I thought I'd throw it out there, anyway. Hope it helps somebody.


Mike

 

From what I understand of how Outlook Express stores Address Book files, you can create any number of them.

OE uses the file named WAB.EXE to open any and all of these files. They all have the WAB extension. eg, yourname.wab or timwalls.wab or wifesname.wab depending on how many user profiles you create.

The challenge when copying those files for backup is to be sure you have copied the correct one/ones.

Copying the WAB.EXE file isn't necessary since that's only the executable that Windows uses to open ANY of those files. It will be on the new system by default.

Furthermore, double clicking on the WAB.EXE file will open the default user.wab file and can tend to be misleading. It only looks in one particular location by default and won't find yourfile.wab if you haven't placed it there. That default location varies by the system version. To direct it to another location you have to initiate it from a command line and add the proper switches. Those switches can be viewed by entering wab.exe /? from the command line.

I suggest that you not give up your quest until you have read the information at THIS site.

It's quite possible that you didn't save the correct file but it's also possible that you may only need to locate it properly on your new system.

In any case, if you double click the file that you saved (Tim.wab or whatever) and it doesn't display any addresses, you didn't backup the proper file and all hope is lost. Opening it in this manner renders any path questions moot.

Good luck.

 

Two Cents Worth

I learned a long time ago to always make a 'paper' backup. I keep a notebook in my computer desk where I write down my e-mail addresses, my icq contact #s and my passwords. It never hurts to keep information the old fashioned way, pencil and paper. It sure saved my butt a few times when I bought new computers and the darn data bases didn't want to transfer or I just didn't save the correct files. Might be something to think about for the future.

Bummer on your loss, Tim.

 

When it comes to any type of Operating file like that, a paper backup is good to do. Since the time that I re-formatted without saving addy or ICQ files, or printing out my address book & had to wait for people to send me something, or as on ICQ contact me, to get the addy's & numbers back, I have printed it out & media saved it too, ever since. Call me paranoid, but if anyone can lose something, or have bad luck, it's me.

The old fashioned way is still the best sometimes.

Any personal files I want to keep, I burn to a CD, but stuff like address books & ICQ, I print out, or write it down & burn it also. You can change a person's profile in ICQ to a card & burn it to a CD. You can do the same with the OE Address book I think, but am not sure about that. Having it both ways is best IMO. Media & paper. Doing both is not such a bad idea. That way you have a backup to the backup.

Deloris

 

That's excellent advice panda. You can't beat having a hard copy to refer to when all the electronic wizardry goes sour.

If it's important, print it out!

 

I found this page while looking for the DBXtract site again. It seems to have a lot of info & tools on it about backing up e-mail, for those who want to do it an easier way. Nothing about address books though, that I could tell.

http://pages.prodigy.net/jdjd/email/emailback.htm

I do have the DBXtract tool & it is a stand alone tool. It does extract the e-mail real nicely, and according to the info, when you want to restore it, just drag & drop it back into OE from within a Windows Explorer folder to the OE folder.
On this site he names 5 tools, of which three he reccomends more. He explains things in real simmple terms.

You can click on the name of any of the 5 tools & go to the page for that tool that tells you how to use it, & get a download from there.

Deloris.

 

The dbx extract tool is here

It's also on the link I posted earlier so it's pretty popular stuff.

 

I know, but I posted the other page because it had some other tools on it as well that might be of help or of interest.

Thanks.

Deloris.

 

As Jackie always said, "You're the greatest ". **** the biscuits, full speed ahead and pass the corn dodger!

cheers.

 

I certanly am in agreement about paper backups. Pity I haven't had one to fall back upon in this case. My Wife keeps telling me that "you will never beat quill and vellum "! Perhaps not such a tech dinosaur after all.

The paperless office takes another step forward, er not.

Thanks all.

Tim

 

Tim Walls--It sounds like you have the various .wab files but not wab.exe. The latter is a standard Windows file. Using System File Checker, it should be easy to restore the wab.exe file from your Windows CD. (Normally you could probably also restore from C:\Windows\Options\cabs, but if you reformatted, that folder probably has been erased).
Once restored you should be able to open the .wab files you hopefully still have.
To run System File Checker, click Start|Run|type SFC|click OK|check the box "extract one file... "|type wab.exe|click Start|in "Restore from" you Browse to your disk drive where you put the Windows CD|in "Save File in" you type C:\Program Files\Outlook Express|click OK. That should do it.