Hi Nepatsfan and Shenan,
Thank you both for your replies. I will answer both here.
I did a search in Documents and Settings and there are 4 "user" files but
only 1 .WAB file. The 4 user files are called "All Users" "DCW Customer"
"Default User" and "User." It seems to be missing the Groups I had set up
and can't really determine if it is current or not. Still, I appreciate
having found it. It can certainly be populated again.
Thank you for sending the links for the OE Newsgroups. I will add them to
my Newsgroup list.
I'll describe what happened to my PC and what they did. When I powered on
the PC for the first time in a week (vacation) it powered up and it started
2 instances of Norton Anti Virus (one scheduled and one at startup) so I
cancelled one of them using Task Manager. Then I don't recall exactly what
happened but had to power down the PC by holding in the power button. This
is because the PC had not been responding lately to the shutdown command.
OK. The next time I powered it up it got to the wallpaper screen but then
nothing further happened. It didn't bring up any applications. No start
button in lower left hand corner. Nothing. It would accept cntl/alt/del to
get me to the task manager screen. Then I could open windows explorer. I
tried to run IE from there but it couldn't seem to find the internet and
told me that my home page was unavailable and just shut IE off. If an
application was resident within the PC it would come up and seemed to work
OK. I tried several power down/power up's but the same thing happened each
time. I tried SAFE MODE several times but nothing seemed to work.
I took it back to the place that built it for me back in 2004. The
technician said that he had read about this situation but that even
Microsoft didn't know what caused it or how to fix it.
At this point he backed up my entire hard drive and then reinstalled WinXP.
At least that was my understanding. Then he loaded all the applications for
which I had a CD. Everything else was in a folder called "recovered" and I
was able to go to that folder and copy back lots of files, applications and
DLLs because he didn't know where they were to go. So I was able to recover
most things. Some things I did have to reinstall but for the most part it
was pretty clean.
Again let me thank you both for your prompt and accurate responses. I'll
also make a note as to where the address book is so next time I'll know.
Also I'll add it to my backup procedure!
--
Kathy
aka smiley
In God We Trust
Nepatsfan said:
Here's the default location for your OE address book. Simply substitute
the correct info where it says <user name>.
C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Microsoft\Address
Book.
You might want to go to Start and click on Search. Enter *.wab in the file
name box. This should return a list of all the OE address books on your
computer. Hopefully, yours is still there.
Here are a couple of newsgroups for Outlook Express that you might find
helpful.
Outlook Express General Newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Outlook Express 6 Newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress
Good luck
Nepatsfan
Can you better describe what you mean by, "... My PC had to have WinXP
reinstalled ..."?
Your Outlook Express Address Book is stored in your profile. Usually as
your "username.wab".
Start button --> RUN --> Type In:
"%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Address Book"
--> Click OK.
Having done some sort of repair install or OEM recovery - it could have
created a new profile for you...
Start button --> RUN --> Type In:
"C:\Documents and Settings\"
--> Click OK.
Do you have more than one directory there with your username?
