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Number   :  148
Date     :  2001-06-04
Author   :  Kan Yabumoto
Subject  :  How to locate OutlookExpress files
Size(KB) :  5


Hi, all:

I just responded to a post in a usenet newsgroup where a guy was
asking "How can I backup the Outlook Express email files so that
I can resotore them later?".

Well, it's a common headache to learn where to find OutLook Express
files. For that matter, many Microsoft applications are pretty
tough to figure out where they keep their things...

So, here's a (kind a long) technique on how to find the directory
where files are kept by an application using XXCOPY.

Here's my post. ----------------------------------------------------

I recommend the use of XXCOPY, a freeware program to do file management
chores to do so. Here, muddy's original question can be answered by
telling where Outlook Express keeps its files. Once that is answered,
you may proceed with a number of tools to do so. As a matter of fact,
I did not know where the files were kept until I saw muddy's question.
Let me tell you where and how to copy using XXCOPY (which is nearly
identical to XCOPY but can do a lot more --- I will tell you why XXCOPY
is better later).

I assume your Win9x environment is pretty much following the standard
(default) settings (such as where is the system windows directory, etc.)
and you need adjustments if your setting deviates.

Here's a hard way to do it. The following line is just one line of
command line (which your viewer will likely show you in multiple
lines because it is too long). Run the following line in a DOS BOX
(if you can).

XCOPY "C:\WINDOWS\Application
Data\Identities\{E7138640-0F4A-11D4-B881-B1AE06665528}\Microsoft\Outlook
Express\*.dbx" c:\mybackup\Outlook\ /s/h/r/y/k


Let me simplify the line to see the whole picture.

XCOPY "C:\...\Outlook Express\*.dbx" c:\mybackup\outlook\ /s/h/r/y/k

Here, the long path name is abbreviated by "..." to show it in one line.
Microsoft chooses to store the Outlook (and other M$ applications) files
in a directory with a name so crazy no one on earth can remember (most
people can't even locate the path). The command I showed you is to
save the various DBX files into a reasonably named backup directory
using a common combination of XCOPY switches. It will handle repeated
backup because it will overwrite previous copy. (I won't go into
how to restore from it but it should be easy once you know where
Outlook stores the files).

But, here's the problem. If you try to run the above long command line,
even by using the cut-and-paste method, the line is probably just too
long to fit into the regular command line (DOS Box allows you to type
only 127 character in the line). So, you may have to make a batch file
which allows you to type in a longer command line (255 charas max???).
Since the path name is so crazy nobody would want to type the whole
thing anyway. (If you are not sure how to carte a batch file, you may
use Notepad to create a new file "C:\windows\mybackup.bat" and enter
the first XCOPY command line I just gave you above).

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Now, if you are intrigued by how I quickly found out where the
Outlook Express files are stored, read on...

I used XXCOPY to locate where Outlook stores its file. This technique
can be applied to most other applications. All I did was to launch
the Outlook Express program and wrote just one new dummy Email and
saved it. The idea was to trigger file I/O actions, hopefully that
would create a new file, or modify existing files. Then, did the
following (within a few seconds):

XXCOPY C:\ /S /LDT /DA#1M

This program scans the entire C:\ directory (here, since the root
directory was specified, it searched the whole drive). The /LDT
switch makes it list (not to copy) the files that are found. The
/DA#1M switch makes it search for files that were made within
1 minute. (You could have made it /DA#30S for 30 seconds, or
/DA#1H for one hour, or /DA#10D for ten days).

And sure enough, the screen listed a bunch of files that were created
within the past one minute most of which was OutLook Express files.

Apparently, Microsoft tries to hide all these goodies into a
subdirectory which is really deep inside the C:\Windows\Application Data\.
Although it creates \...\Microsoft\Outlook Express\ subdirectory
(which is a reasonable name), it is inside a very cryptic directory
\{E7138640-0F4A-11D4-B881-B1AE06665528}\ which effectively hides the
inner components (--- ask someone else how they synthesize this,
apparently a 16-byte value in hex).

By the way, another benefit of XXCOPY is that you need not type
all that crazy subdirectory name. The same line could be

xxcopy c:\windows\*\out*ress\*.dbx \mybackup\ /clone

Which can easily fit into a command line without the help of a
batch file. I'm even so lazy to enclose the directory name
with the double-quotes (needed if you have a space in the name)
that I cut corner by \out*ress\ rather than typing the full
\outlook express\ name here.
Note that this is not XCOPY. It uses the extended function which
is called "Wild-wild-source" where you can use wildcard in any
place any number of times including the path names. The ..\*\...
tells XXCOPY to search for the subdirectory names which matches
the pattern.

Kan Yabumoto

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