Lost Email Addresses

Please Help

I recently upgraded my computer from the Windows 98 operating system to the Windows XP operating system. I had Microsoft Outlook running as my email program and consequently all of my saved email addresses are stored in that program. After I installed Windows XP, I was unable to start Microsoft Outlook because the program required me to insert the disc that Microsoft Office was installed from. I have lost this disc since installing the Microsoft Office program, I have downloaded another email program from the internet (Pegasus Mail). I am now able to send and receive email but I have lost all of my email addresses (I have lost access to my address book). I have searched on my computer for the address book but it is an impossible task because there are so many files to sort through. Can you suggest a possible solution for me?

 

I think outlook stores its address book as a .wab file, well at least Outlook express does, so try searching for those files by typing *.wab in the search criteria. Hope you find it.

 

Outlook (unless you are using an exchange server which is not the case here) will keep your contacts in a Personal Address Book (.pab) usually. You don't say what version of Outlook but that's probably where yours are located.

If you were using Contacts, let us know since you may have addresses in both places.

 

I have searched on my computer for (.pab) - found nothing. Do you think that uninstalling XP (I bought an upgrade), reverting to Windows 98 (my previous version) so that Outlook can start, printout the email addresses, etc. then reinstall XP - do you think this will work. I used Outlook 2000

 

Nope on the reversion to 98 helping you out. It might but it could also make a recovery impossible.

I gather that you have been running this locally rather than on a business network from exchange server. If that's wrong and you were/are using exchange server, the address book is probably located on that server. A stand-alone/home system should have your .pab file though.

In Windows Explorer, click on tools, on folder options, on view and make sure you are set to show hidden files. Then download Agent Ransack, install it, and try the search for a .pab file again.

 

I enabled ALL FILES (+HIDDEN), downloaded Agent ransack, installed it and am trying it - will get back to you.

 

Problem solved

I ran agent ransack and searched my computer for an email address I knew was in my address book, eventually I found a garbled list of my email addresses. I still cannot access any of my microsoft outlook files (they remain installed on my PC, outlook express will not start (it wants to start outlook, I also cannot open my windows address book. I have downloaded incredimail from the net and have installed this as my email program. WHEW