I know it appears convoluted, but trust me, it's the only supported way to
transfer Outlook data. You are correct that Outlook has gotten increasingly
intolerant of other ways to transfer Outlook data with each successive
version, but overwriting a PST file has always caused trouble in every
version of Outlook and was never recommended.

I know of at least 4 ways that users often migrate PST files improperly that
will result in problems:
a. Importing an entire PST file.
b. Opening a previous PST file in an unsupported scenario (such as on a
network drive or in a shared folder located on another drive).
c. Overwriting a profile's default PST file.
d. Renaming a profile's default PST then redirecting Outlook to a new PST on
re-launch.

The only supported method for migrating Outlook Data is the one documented
in Outlook 2003's Help Files (which is the one I described):
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/as...771141033.aspx
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
"BB List" wrote in message
...
Russ, Thank you for your advice
I can try all that but it appears rather unecessarily convoluted.
In the past all I had to do was to copy the pst file from one machine and
paste it into the other machine. It worked and has worked for about the
last
five years.
It should be simple as that because there is only one user for both
machines
and therefore only need for one profile
The impression I get from the help files is that is all I need to do so I
was wondering if any changes been casued by any of teh Outlook fixes.


"Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]" wrote:

Addendum: after you remove the Address Book Service and restart Outlook,
you
must re-add the service, then enable the folders as email address books).
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
"Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]" wrote in message
...
How could we know what caused the problem?
We have no idea how you "transferred" the PST file. I'd wager you did
so
incorrectly.
The only correct way to migrate a PST file is to open it in another
Outlook Profile then set it to be the default for that profile and
close
the PST you are trying to replace.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
"BB List" wrote in message
...
For some time I have been able to transfer the outlook.pst file from
my
desktop to Laptop, and vice-versa, so I can work on emails when away
from
home. The last time I transferred the pst file from the desktop to the
laptop
I found that the Contacts list had disappeared . I also found that I
could
not add new contacts.
But, when I transferred that same outlook.pst file back to the desktop
everything worked as it should. What is causing this problem?
I am using Outlook 2003 SP2 with Windows XP Pro on both machines.