Backing Up Navigation Pane Customizations - WinXP

[north-sysop]

I would like to know if anyone could assist with a problem related to saving the configuration and customization of the Navigation Pane.

Environment:

Microsoft Outlook 2007 on Windows XP Pro SP3

Connects to Exchange 2010

Users will infrequently have corrupted Navigation Pane shortcuts and need to run OUTLOOK.EXE /resetnavpane to restore order.

I have tried backing up the outlook.xml file from C:\Documents and Settings\%USER%\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook and restoring that file when the settings have been wiped by the /resetnavpane switch, but it does not seem to contain any of their previously set up groups or shared calendars.

In particular, I have a single user who has a Navigation Pane with three groups and several shared calendars in each group who wastes a fair amount of time setting up her calendar organization every time the Nav Pane resets.

Is outlook.xml not the file that is supposed to contain this data? Is there a more effective way of backing up this user's Navigation Pane customizations than copying the XML file?

 

[Diane Poremsky]

That's the right file. Are you copying it after the user makes the changes AND closes outlook? Is Outlook closed when you restore it?

 

[north-sysop]

Outlook is closed when I overwrite, and I copy (back up) the file when Outlook is closed as well.

It seems odd to me that I don't see any of the (sub)group names or calendar names in the xml file as well.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

that is odd, because they should be in it. Are they more than one xml files in the folder? You need the one that matches her profile name. (outlook.xml for most users)

 

[north-sysop]

So I just verified that this issue is occurring on another workstation.

I shut down Outlook, and take a copy of outlook.xml . I then start Outlook and reset the nav pane and then shut down Outlook again. I restore the copied version of outlook.xml and none of the calendars are there.

There is only one outlook.xml file present in the directory and I know I'm in the correct user account. This is baffling me.

On a side note, if I look at the outlook.xml file when all the calendars are properly added to the nav pane, I do not see any mention of any of the shared calendars I've opened. This seems to me that the nav pane is not getting the information about what to display from the .xml file...

Edit:

On a whim, I decided to try shutting down Outlook and deleting outlook.xml from the directory -then restarting Outlook (all when the calendars were correctly displayed).

When I restarted, the calendars were all there and Outlook just recreated outlook.xml . So deleting the outlook.xml file did not make me lose my shared calendars. I just don't get it.

 

[Cathy Rhone]

Looks like outlook saves the exchange shared folders in the registry - it created these two keys for me when i added two new users. But it also rewrites them (using different guid) when i reopen outlook.

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\profile_name\d7618546b33ad841bb66c3107a40e1eb

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\profile_name\e67e5ecf9041854ebf4cd266931d3767

You can check the registry for newly created keys then look at the values- 001e300a will say "EMSMDB.DLL" - there will be a total of 7 binary values - plus the (default) under the key.

When you find it, open 001f3001 to see what its for.

View attachment 208

 

[Cathy Rhone]

BTW, because outlook recreates the key when it loads, i don't know if exporting and reloading the keys from registry will help. Outlook might delete them and go on.

Because its under the profile keys, have you tried a new profile? Use a unique name for it so there is no chance of 'bleed' from the other profile.

Also - if you use a registry cleaner, stop.

 

[north-sysop]

I found the registry keys, but I'm not sure what to do with them. I tried exporting the keys when I have it set up the way I like and then applying them with I lose the shared calendars, but that didn't work - there may be more keys or one of the 'run first time' keys that are overwriting.

There's no registry cleaner in effect so that should be a non-issue.

I'm going to try a brand new profile and see if that helps.

This seems like one of those 'should be simple' things that's exceedingly difficult for no good reason...

 

[Diane Poremsky]

I'm not sure what to do with them either - when i tried exporting them and restoring them, it crapped up the profile. My guess is her profile is corrupt - test it with a new profile.

 

[exia]

I am also very interested in doing a similar backup as north-sysop.

I have a number of customer focused users who have a huge list of other shared calendars for their team. Roughly about 30 people split into various groups as one example.

We use Exchange 2003, ooutlook 2007 with sp1, the machines in question are a mixed batch of XP and windows 7. We are halfway through a testing phase on the OS.

I can definitely confirm the xml file does not contain the data for shared calendars, I have seen the registry entries myself with experimenting.

One thing I did find odd and it was purely accidental how I stumbled upon this. My workstation actually died last week and I have a new workstation, which is completely clean built from ground up. After I installed office again, I fired up outlook to let the exchange data filter into my outlook on this workstation, thought I would nosey around the Calendars.

The shared calendars I had opened last week before my old workstation died have actually persisted and is still set up identical to how my outlook calendars we're set up last week!

So that really doesn't give me any better idea where it is stored as I always assumed it was a local registry store, now I think exchange has a small hand in it and therefore that is why exporting the registry on the local current user may not work.

My exchange knowledge is limited at best, so if anyone has a better insight on what I stumbled across, that would be appreciated.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Are you using Outlook 2010? It stores more stuff in the mailbox and I think it automatically loads shared calendars. I believe there is a hotfix for Outlook 2007 that helps with shared calendars too - I'll see if i can find the KB's on both.




Oh, and roaming profiles can also restore things on a new machine.

 

[exia]

We are office 2007, and exchange 2003 based. I personally have stuck with XP for the moment, since 85% of our users are on the same OS.

No roaming profiles are present, I have never needed or use such as I RDP to most of the resources I require, so my machine aside from VM and SCCM work is largely clean.

It was only an off chance that my computer died and I created a new PC from scratch. So I cannot even say the data was resident on the HDD, as I have built this one up from parts.

Appreciate the feedback though, will double check we don't have some strange group policy that may retain some details as well.