Outlook BACK IT UP, BUDDY!
If you’re smart, and you know you are, you already have a backup system in place for all of your computer files. But there are times when you might want a little extra added insurance to backup your Outlook data, or perhaps you want to be able to access that same data from a different computer.
Microsoft offers an add-in utility to let individual users back up their Personal Folders in Microsoft Outlook. The tool, Pfbackup, was originally intended for Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2002, but it works fine with Outlook 2007.
To download the utility from the Microsoft Download Center go to http://www.microsoft.com/download and find the link to Personal Folders Backup. When you install, it will try to fool you by telling you it is doing a Microsoft Office Update, but don’t let it. You can install the add-in with Outlook running, but you’ll need to restart Outlook to load the new utility.
First let’s get the add in installed. Download the file by clicking the Download button and save the file to your hard disk. Now, using My Computer, find the pfbackup.exe file you saved and double click it to install it. Then follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation.
Once it’s installed start, or restart, Outlook. From the File menu, choose Backup. On the window that pops up, select Options. In the next window select which pst file to backup if you have more than one. You can also choose to tell it where to save the backup file, and can even tell Outlook to remind you to do this again after a certain number of days, ranging from 1 to 60. If you enter a number greater than 60, the add-in uses the maximum reminder interval of 60 days.Thedefault reminder interval is 7 days. Click OK and then Save backup.
You will be prompted to close Outlook first. Select OK, then close Outlook. As soon as you do that, you should see a progress bar window pop up showing you how things are going. If you don’t, just be sure not to shut down your system for a while. Backup is running in the background. For instance, a 2GB .pst file might take 15 minutes to backup depending on the speed of your computer. When you’re sure backup is done, open Outlook back up and continue working as usual.
If you decide you want to remove this add in, you will have to delete the program by going to Start Menu, Control Panel.
To remove the download file itself, delete the file pfbackup.exe. On the Start menu, point to Settings and then click Control Panel. Select Uninstall a program, then from the list of currently installed programs, select Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders Backup. Click Remove or Add/Remove. If a dialog box appears, follow the instructions to remove the program. Click Yes or OK to confirm that you want to remove the program.
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