I need to recover the contents of an OST file from Outlook 2003. I don't need to do this so badly that I'm willing to pay the hundreds of dollars some companies charge for recovery utilities; I'm more interested in doing this from the intellectual challenge side of things. Are there any recommended libraries for doing this? I'd prefer something in either C# or Java.
If you want to do it as an exercise you may want to write your own library.
PST format specification
Wiki article on PST and OST file formats
lipff - opensource C library and tools to access the Personal Folder File (PFF) and the Offline Folder File (OFF) format. PFF is used in PAB (Personal Address Book), PST (Personal Storage Table) and OST (Offline Storage Table) files.
PST file format SDK C++. Can read PST and OST files.
I ran into the same problem. There seems to be a bunch of commercial tools, but I was only able to find one open source tool libpst. The (limited) documentation only talks about .pst files, but it worked like a charm on both .pst and .ost files for me (Outlook 2003, I believe).
I had a few issues compiling it. It couldn't seem to find the Python::Boost lib, but the following worked:
./configure --without-boost-python --disable-python && make
No need to rename the .ost file or convert it with scanpst.exe. Something like readpst -M outlook.ost will dump all your emails into files under the current dir.
Rename the .ost extension to .pst and run scanpst.exe in your Office installation directory. For versions prior to Outlook 2007 this will convert your OST to a PST.
Maybe you could check Alioth LibPST. If you know C, you can probably go through the source code and make it do whatever you would like to do.
Related
I'm using Windows 10 OS, I get missing wuau.adm from windows\inf folder. Can I just replace this file from other server or download it, or copy it back from the sysvol folder?
You may replace the file in either the windows\inf directly or replace it in SYSVOL. And you may replace it from another server or download it. Note: *.adm files have long been phased out by Microsoft. Windows 10 should be using *.admx files instead. Here's a link to the same problem described in the MS TechNet forums. It is from 2009 and earlier OS but it still applies: missing wuau.adm from windows\inf folder
This question might seem to be duplicated with this and this that are similar. But it is not! First- I am getting this error from the setup file and not from the program that I am distributing Second -the version is different, the directories in Installshield 2009 an 10.5 differ. .
I'm trying to fix an error caused by Windows compatibility mode in my setup, which is built with Installshield 10.5. So far my research led me to a conclusion that i need to add [this][3] to my manifest file. I saw that Microsoft's tool mt.exe could extract a manifest file from a dll, however I did not see anywhere that it can extract it from an executable file.
So my questions are the following:
Is there any way to view the manifest file of a Setup.exe built with Installshield?
Is there any way to configure this manifest file for the certain project in Installshield?
[3]Can one edit an InstallShield setup.exe's manifest file?
As far as I know, mt.exe will work fine on EXE files; both EXE and DLL files are Portable Executable (PE) files, and PE files use the exact same structure for resources such as the manifest. Visual Studio, CFF explorer, and countless other tools (including raw resource APIs) will also work to view and possibly update manifests in general.
However for a built InstallShield setup.exe, there is a twist. InstallShield uses areas in the file to store information that are not described in the PE format. Tools that update the resources on an EXE can inadvertently destroy this data as they do not expect it to be there, nor do they know how to detect or adjust it.
InstallShield 12 or so and later allow you to specify a manifest, and it selects the manifest from files it ships that you can update before it adds them to the setup.exe. In addition, there is a tool called ISReMan that is aware of the extra information and can update the manifest correctly when that data is present.
By the way, it's generally helpful to mention the actual problem you're trying to solve, in case the method you've chosen (in this case updating the manifest) is not the correct solution. Note as well that InstallShield 10.5 is over 10 years old, and knows nothing about UAC, PCA, and other Vista and later technologies; adjusting the manifest may not help fix, say, an elevation-related problem.
Note as well that I am paid to work on InstallShield, so I may be biased when I recommend things like upgrading. :)
We want to Sync our dev environment to Prod. There are different kinds of files dlls, aspx, html, txt, folders, subdirectories. Is there any tool that can give us report that states these files are out of sync based on modified, created date or version
Is it possible to copy out of sync files from one location to other. We are using windows server 2003
Thanks!
Kris
there are a lot of version control / file comparison tools.. I personally like Scooter Soft's Beyond Compare http://www.scootersoftware.com, it's a bit simple (which is why i like it), then there's this one, which i use at my day job: diffMerge http://www.sourcegear.com/diffmerge/. Honestly, there's a ton of tools for this, each with there different pro's / con's.. it will depend on the granular needs of your situation.
Google "file comparison tool"
I'm currently trying to make a download/install file for a CD, and I've never done this or written any type of coding before so I'm somewhat at a loss. When we last created an installer package (I wasn't employed yet) we used InstalShield, but that was decades ago, and we can't afford the 500$+ price to get it again.
Currently I'm trying to work off the old download package we have. There is the Windows Installer Package (made by InstalShield) called CD Cat v6.msi, and then another file called CDcatv6.exe (which launches a window for the customer to browse options) and then a file called Data.cab which has all the files for the entire catalog in it.
I was thinking perhaps I can just replace a lot of those files with the current information. Replace the CDcatv6.exe file with my v7.exe file (but change the name so its CDcatv6.exe) and then replace all the files in the Data.cab file with the current ones. But that's turning out to be a huge issue.
I did a bit of searching to learn what a .cab file was, and downloaded the Cab File Maker 2.0 (after quite a bit of searching!). I'm having a difficult time using it though, as it wants all the files that I put in it to make the .cab to be in .ddf format. I have no idea what that is, much less how to make it. I tried using 'save as' to do it, but since all the files I need are PDF's there's no option for it and I cant export the files to it either.
I tried looking at other ways that people made Cab files, but I don't know many of the file types or programs their talking about. I'm not a programmer by any means, but I have to learn quick I guess, so any information on how to do this will help greatly. Is it even possible to replace all the files seamlessly and have it work properly? Or is there an easier way to create a fill that the customer can click on and have it download to their desktop?
I don't think simple editing of Data.cab will work. There is installer logic stored in other InstallShield files. It could work if and only if the file set is the same, I mean no files changed its names, no new files added, no new registry entries required etc.
To create a CAB file, use cabarc.exe from Microsoft Windows SDK.
Creating a brand new installer may be a better option. Look at this tools for creating installers:
Advanced Installer
NSIS
WiX toolset (with tutorial)
You best solution is to use dark.exe (part of the WiX toolset).
This will enable to you decompile the MSI and CAB files, edit the installer source as XML and then recompile this into a new executable. Unfortunately this route is not for the faint of heart and what you save on price will cost you in time.
I'm curious how your company created an MSI decades ago, but Sasha is right about time and money trade-offs. However if you're working with Visual Studio, you might try the InstallShield Limited Edition for Visual Studio. It may have enough capabilities to suit your needs.
Thanks for pointing to CABARC, that looks exactly what i was looking for, due to information on:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/bb417343(v=msdn.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN#top
That make me look how to download it, but i found this post:
Where can I get the cabarc utility?
Where it explains CABARC may be obsolete and there is another utility called MAKECAB that cames with Windows 11, i had try it at command line and it is there.
Thanks a lot.
How can I save emails to my local desktop folder in Microsoft Outlook 2007? I need a plugin or can you help me in writing a plugin with some suitable code as reference. I don't have permission to create *.pst. I don't want to save it manually everytime.
There are several commercial solutions available, for example: MessageSave or MailToFile, but I understand that you're looking for a free alternative. In that case you may check SharepointUpload.
Despite its name it allows to a normal folder.
Note: Although the tool was designed for SharePoint's naming restrictions, the tool can be used to extract all the above to a normal folder (e.g. C:\Temp).
It's freeware and you have also available the source code so you could modify the product if it doesn't meet your needs.
SharePoint Upload is a command line freeware tool (with .NET source) that can extract e-mails from PST, Public Folders, and Exchange Mailboxes and place on a file system in MSG format (using Redemption)