Issue transferring Outlook 2016 email accounts & settings onto new computer

[MOutlook]

Hi all,

I am a seasoned user when it comes to transferring Outlook accounts & emails to a new computer.

I do usually have to resort to manually setting up the email accounts on the new computer system, which is time consuming due to multiple accounts.

I am using POP and have the different email accounts come into the one Outlook data file.

In the interests of saving time, instead of creating each email account manually on the new computer, I have moved the accounts from the old to new by exporting the registry values from the old, and then importing these into the new. (Old and new computers are using Outlook 2016 32 bit)

The data files (.pst) have also been transferred to a folder on the new computer, that matches the one from the old computer.

On the new computer I go into Control Panel > Email (Outlook 2016), and I can see that both email accounts and data files are showing correctly.

However when opening Outlook, there are no email accounts, or data files showing, when I go into File > Account settings > Account settings

(You can't normally open a newly installed copy of Outlook before an email account has been setup, so I have used the published registry addition to remove the mandatory email account setup wizard).

So, where I am at at the moment, is that the account settings summary window (which has the email & data files tab - see the screen show attached), has all the correct information when accessing this via the control panel, but is empty when accessing this from within the Outlook program.

Therefore, it would appear at this stage, that I have 2 separate account settings summary windows, and that the Outlook program is not 'connected' to the settings showing in the control panel.

There must be a way to easily resolve this - any help greatly appreciated.

 

[MOutlook]

Edited for better readability below:

Hi all,

I am a seasoned user when it comes to transferring Outlook accounts & emails to a new computer.

I do usually have to resort to manually setting up the email accounts on the new computer system, which is time consuming due to multiple accounts.

I am using POP and have the different email accounts come into the one Outlook data file.

In the interests of saving time, instead of creating each email account manually on the new computer, I have moved the accounts from the old to new by exporting the registry values from the old, and then importing these into the new. (Old and new computers are using Outlook 2016 32 bit)

The data files (.pst) have also been transferred to a folder on the new computer, that matches the one from the old computer.

On the new computer I go into Control Panel > Email (Outlook 2016), and I can see that both email accounts and data files are showing correctly.

However when opening Outlook, there are no email accounts, or data files showing, when I go into File > Account settings > Account settings

(You can't normally open a newly installed copy of Outlook before an email account has been setup, so I have used the published registry addition to remove the mandatory email account setup wizard imposed by Outlook).

So, where I am at at the moment, is that the account settings summary window (which has the email & data files tab - see the screen shot attached), has all the correct information when accessing this via the control panel, but is empty when accessing this from within the Outlook program.

The Outlook program is showing no email accounts, and no emails.

Therefore, it would appear at this stage, that I have 2 separate account settings summary windows, and that the Outlook program is not 'connected' to the settings showing in the control panel.

There must be a way to easily resolve this - any help greatly appreciated.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

In file > office account - what is the text following the version/build. Is it click to run or windows store?

 

[MOutlook]

In file > office account - what is the text following the version/build. Is it click to run or windows store?

It is Microsoft Store

 

[MOutlook]

Some attempted trouble shooting:

Creating an Outlook profile via Control Panel > Mail (Outlook 2106) results in the profile being created in the registry. (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Profiles\ProfileName)

Creating an Outlook profile from within the Outlook program itself, creates the profile, but it does not show up in the registry (and a registry search does not find it).

I thought perhaps disabling the mandatory email account setup wizard in Outlook may have caused some unexpected side affect, but re-enabling this does not seem to have made any difference.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

It is Microsoft Store

That's the problem.
The Windows Store Outlook App (slipstick.com)

If you are just setting it up, uninstall it and install click to run from office.com.

 

[MOutlook]

Thanks Diane,

What an usual cause, and apart from your post and related article The Windows Store Outlook App (slipstick.com), there did not appear to be any other mention on the internet. The closest was Microsoft Support stating there was a corruption, but I did not think this was the case, as it was a new computer & install.

For anyone else that encounters this issue, the fix for me was easier than expected.

I was going to uninstall Office and re-install using a newly downloaded installer (I was working on the basis that any data would be lost). When I went to uninstall, there was an option next to uninstall, that said repair (i think it may have been modify > repair). This repair appeared to download a new version of 2016, doing something resembling an in place upgrade.

After this, everything worked without me having to do any further setup. ie The mail applet in the control panel is now connected to Outlook (or vice versa). My previous efforts with copying email account registry files worked, and apart from having to manually enter a password for each email account (which was expected), it is working as it did on the old computer.

I was surprised that everything worked on its own, as I read that there is no migration utility (as mentioned in the above article). Perhaps the migration utility is part of their repair process when the non click-to-run version is installed.

I was going to complain that a mature product such as Outlook should have an easier way to transfer email accounts, but I wont. (I recall older version did allow this, or was it Outlook Express that had the ability to save email account settings to a file from within the program?)

 

[Diane Poremsky]

So the repair installed the click to run version? That's new - it used to reset the store version, which deleted ost files.

 

[MOutlook]

Yes, I am happy that it did, and also will be happy to have no further Outlook issues for the rest of the year!