thanks, diane. yes, picture command would be the way to go if i did not have 25k old contacts to deal with.
but i am now sorted by importing the missing mails to a working machine. fyi - custom form resides at the root of the deliver-mails .pst. that's why i failed at first, thought the .psts contain only mails & contacts.
given ol is so brittle - is there an app that would back it up? accts & settings - i know how to deal with .psts.