I recently upgraded from Outlook 2000 to 2003. When I opened my .pst file
in the new version of Outlook, the contacts master category list does not
contain any of my custom categories. The original contacts still have the
proper custom categories, but when I go to add a new contact and select an
appropriate category from the master list, none of my custom entries are
there.

I read MS knowledge base article ID 303937 which says that the master
category list is stored in the registry. Therefore, the correct registry
entries must be copied. However, this procedure doesn't work when upgrading
from 2002 to 2003. Exporting the MasterList registry key results in a table
consisting of hex and ascii codes, so you can't just copy the contents of
the exported file and paste it into the Outlook master category list.

I'm running XP Pro SP2. I tried exporting from regedit and regedt32, but
still cannot get a clean text list than can be simply copied and pasted.

I hope I'm just being stupid and overlooking something simple. I can't
imaging this commonly required task could be so hard.

Regards,
Tony