SOLVED Adding New Outlook 2010 Account and Merging with Old Account

[pmillen]

When my ISP was Qwest my e-mail address (it came with the Internet service) was [email protected] (it was shorthand for Telechoice Online). When CenturyLink acquired Qwest they also acquired the Telechoice Online services.

They recently notified their subscribers that they are offering 1-Gbps fiber to the premises Internet service and will be discontinuing the Telechoice Online services. I opted for the 1-Gps.

What I didn't know until after the installation is that my old e-mail address, [email protected], will be discontinued in 45 days. They do not plan to forward messages to my new e-mail address, [email protected]. I can notify everyone in my Address Book of my new e-mail address but there are several companies that infrequently send messages to me that are not in it.

Additionally, when I bought my Windows 8 cell phone I needed to establish a Windows Live e-mail address ([email protected]), arrange for Outlook's [email protected] to populate the @live.com account with contacts, calendar and the like so @live can synch my calendar with my Windows phone.

So—here's what I think I need to do.
1. Copy the data files (.pst) from the @tconl.com location to the new @centurylink.net location. That should move my archives, saved e-mails, calendar and contacts from my old to my new e-mail account.
2. Notify everyone that I can identify of my new e-mail address and ask them to start using it immediately.
3. Here’s the difficult one—stop [email protected] from updating [email protected] and start [email protected] updating it. I don’t know how to accomplish this but I may find an answer on a Microsoft site. Suggestions will be welcome and appreciated.

It would probably be easier if I just eliminated [email protected] and the corresponding Outlook involvement and just asked everyone to begin using [email protected] but I prefer the look and feel of Outlook to Live.

So—Where am I going wrong? What do you suggest?

 

[TrainableMan]

When you say Outlook, do you mean the version that comes with Microsoft Office and is installed as an application on your hard drive or do you mean web mail at www.outlook.com?

The reason I ask is because www.outlook.com is the same as www.live.com and is also the same as www.hotmail.com - they are interchangeable and all are now using the "online" outlook.

 

[pmillen]

The Outlook 2010 component of Microsoft Office.

 

[TrainableMan]

Microsoft (Office) Outlook has to be set up to point to your ISPs pop server to function. So what you will need to do is open Outlook, then Select File, Account Settings V, Account Settings and a new box will open. You will see your old mail box (which I suggest you leave there for the 45 days just in case) and you can click New to add your [email protected] address. You will either need to visit Centurylinks webpage or call the help desk to get the mail & smtp server addresses. From that point on it will pull your mail from both mailboxes. Then in 45 days when the other is deleted you can go back into Outlook Account settings and remove the [email protected] .

As for syncing your mail; I don't have an exact answer because I don't sync mail but I suspect it is similar to outlook, basically change the settings to point to the new email address & new mail/smtp servers.

BTW: I don't think you will need to move any PST files for Microsoft outlook. Outlook files are stored locally on your hard drive so all it needs is to know the email info to go get them. It goes to the account (or accounts) you have set in settings and then simply downloads them to "Inbox".

 

[pmillen]

Okay. Thanks for the help.

I had the new Outlook e-mail ([email protected]) working when I made the original post. It works fine.

But I think I have two concerns to deal with.

(1) When the old mailbox is discontinued I would like to move the saved mail, contacts, calendar, everything I guess, to my new mailbox. It seems to me that I need to merge the old [email protected] PST files with the PST files for my new e-mail address, [email protected]. If, in order to save my old mail, contacts, calendar and the like, I replace the new PST files with the old ones I'll lose whatever information is contained in the new PST files.

Is there a way to merge the PST files?

(2) I need to stop [email protected] from updating [email protected] and start [email protected] updating it so my contacts and calendar are on my Windows 8 cellphone. I haven't looked into this yet 'cause it needs to be done after the PST files are merged. Any suggestions are welcome.

 

[TrainableMan]

1) As I said, i don't think you should have PST files specific to your email address. My PST file is Outlook.pst, InboxNew.pst, & mailbox.pst and they don't change when I change email address.

2) As for this, I don't synchronize any mailboxes and I don't automatically forward any mail but I suspect all you do is change the settings from one mail address to the other.

Why do you send mail from your ISP mail server to the Microsoft online "live" email servers anyway? If it is so you can access them from online, Centurylink allows you to logon to your account from a browser and view your messages from their website, so there really is no need to forward them to your Microsoft Live mailbox.

 

[pmillen]

It appears that my two Outlook 2010 e-mail accounts have discrete PST files.

In C:\Users\MyName\My Documents\Outlook Files I have five PST files.

Four are from my original [email protected] e-mail address—
[email protected]
archive.pst
archive1.pst
archive2.pst

The fifth is from my new [email protected] e-mail address—
xxx[EMAIL='[email protected]']@centurylink.net.pst[/EMAIL]

I guess what I'll do is change the tconl.com.pst to centurylink.net.pst (that name exists so I'll have to make it available). As a result I'll lose the information that resides in the short-lived centurylink.net.pst file.

Since my [email protected] e-mail account is updated by Outlook 2010 just to synch my Outlook 2010 calendar with my Windows phone I am still considering cutting the Outlook-managed accounts out of the equation and using the [email protected] e-mail address exclusively. That seems to be the most easily workable solution.

My advice to anyone establishing an e-mail account—Don't use an account provided by your ISP. They can change and/or discontinue your e-mail address as they see fit. Establish your e-mail with one of the Internet based providers like gmail, yahoo, aol and the like. I don't think they're as likely to change your e-mail address. (Although AOL acquired CompuServe's e-mail service and accounts and required the CompuServe customers to change their e-mail addresses.)

 

[TrainableMan]

It's good advice and I do think most people are useing Hotmail/Live/Outlook.com, yahoo mail, or gmail as their primary email account. It's more convenient so you don't have to change everything just because you change ISPs.

 

[pmillen]

"Why do you send mail from your ISP mail server to the Microsoft online "live" email servers anyway?"

One of the reasons I acquired a Windows 8 cellphone was to have my calendar, which I kept on my laptop (Outlook 2010), with me at all times. The cellular salesperson assured me that the Outlook calendar and my cellphone calendar would synch with each other automatically.

Well...they don't. Webmail, www.outlook.com, may automatically synch with the phone but Outlook 2010 doesn't. The only way to synch Outlook 2010 is to have it synch with an @live.com account and then have the @live.com account synch with the Windows phone.

It was somewhat difficult to establish but now it synchs without my involvement.

That's why I wrote in my previous post that I may eliminate the Outlook 2010 involvement and begin using @live.com to maintain my calendar.

 

[TrainableMan]

Microsoft used to give Outlook Express software free and then they marketed an enhanced version people could upgrade to, which was just "Outlook" (It was sold individually or it came with Microsoft Office 2007, 2010). With Windows 7 they stopped giving Outlook Express and instead offered Windows Live Mail software. Now Microsoft shifted away from WLM and wants to pretend their web-based mail solution is the same thing so they renamed Hotmail and slapped some blue paint on it and call it Outlook.com. Unfortunately, name-wise, many people have not switched to their cloud-based Office 360 so we still have Outlook "software" which is nowhere near the same as Outlook ".com" ... same commonly used name, completely different beasts.

So yes, understood, to sync your calendar. It does sound like you have planned your method of attack; please do post if your solution works or not so others in the same situation may learn from your exploits.

 

[pmillen]

I decided that I want to drive the car, not index the camshafts—so it didn't make sense to me to struggle to have Outlook 2010 update my @live.com account so @live.com could update my Windows 8 cellphone.

So I eliminated my @centurylink.net (outlook 2010) mail account from the process. As long as I had to notify everyone that my e-mail address is changing I just told them to use @live.com.

I much prefer the Outlook 2010 look and feel over @live.com but it wasn't worth the hassle to try to stay on Outlook.