Stephen Genusa (steve at genusa.com)
PMSEU was designed to export Internet messages out of Outlook while preserving the Internet headers during export. One of our company folders had nearly 30,000 messages in it. Try doing a text search across a folder that large! Why not use Outlook's Export feature? Outlook's "export" function strips all the useful Internet message header information as well, making their export (thank you Microsoft Marketing Dept.) worthless for our needs. Using PMSEU, what we've done is to export all our message data into another software package that indexes the text providing "instant" search features.
At startup PMSEU attempts to locate all message stores. These are displayed in the first list box. Selecting one of the message stores listed in the 1st list box will fill the 2nd list box with all the root level folders in the message store. Selecting a folder in the 2nd list box fills the 3rd list box with any subfolders found in the folder you selected. The utility does not support folders beyond that level but the source code is included if you need to drill farther down. You can export messages out of items listed in either list box #2 or list box #3. Just select a folder to export from, type a filename to export to into the edit box and press the Export button.
If no Internet Transport Headers are found, the utility attempts to reconstruct a header with the basic Internet info. In cases such as this, the main thing missing will be the message path. Other items are restored if they are available in the message store.
Notes:
You can download PMSEU from http://www.genusa.com/utils/pmseu.zip
Copy the files to a directory of your choice. Read this document completely. Read the disclaimer. If you agree with the disclaimer below, run the utility (pmseu.exe) or modify the source for your needs.
VB 6 runtime (probably available from Microsoft or elsewhere on the Net if you don't already have it loaded). Microsoft Common Controls (for the progress bar). CDO (the messaging API). These dependencies are probably preloaded on most systems.
I cannot provide support of any kind, for any reason, at any price. I've included the source code (VB 6) so you can deal with any issues that may arise or tweaking you might want to do. It took a full day of "hacking" to figure out the best approach to get at the message store to get the information we needed. This should get you started if you need to customize the way it works. PLEASE DO NOT write asking for help. I run a very busy company developing and supporting Active Server Pages components. I don't have time to support the utility. That's why I'm releasing the source. If you need help I suggest you consult a Usenet group or DejaNews. If you aren't a programmer, you can probably find one who can help you get it modified and compiled to handle your needs although they may charge you a fee.
The Microsoft Outlook documentation for scripting was difficult to find and out of date. Outlook '97 is two versions behind what I'm using. At least Microsoft could change the date/time/version information of the documentation if the scripting and object model has not changed. The CDO documentation provides descriptions of properties and methods that in some cases are almost useful. The Microsoft MSDN documentation (all 1.3 gigs) takes plenty of patience, luck, time and luck to use. Having said all that, if you understand a little about VB and objects/collections the source will be easy to understand and you'll be able to modify it to suit your needs.
There is no warranty express or implied. By use of this utility, or the source code, you agree to be fully liable for any damages, real or imagined (and some people can be lucid in their imagination and/or ignorance!), incurred by use or misuse, real or imagined. Use the binary and/or source at your own risk.
Because CDO is such a "work", I suggest you backup your message stores before using this utility. If using the utility suddenly causes your Win9x or WinNT installation to no longer function that's your responsibility. You've got the source code to examine and recompile if you want to. No guarantee is made outside of the fact that if you load this software on your harddisk it will occupy a certain number of bytes of harddisk space. I cannot even guarantee how many bytes this will take though it shouldn't be over 50 or 60K . I haven't had any problems with PMSEU but PST files don't look like byte-fortresses. In fact Outlook has corrupted my PST a couple of times over the last year (at least it has according to the Microsoft Mailbox repair utility). The source code proves that the utility does NOT directly modify your message store but the Microsoft design philosophy is a little like the Tower of Babel. One black box on top of 10 others and we developers sometimes wonder what's hidden 15 stories down from the top!
The complete source code is included in the zip file. In researching how to do the export I found a lot of questions posted on UseNet groups about how to do something like this. The responses boiled down to general pointers that indicated the respondent had never actually coded a CDO export but wanted to pretend to know what he/she was talking about, while the majority of responses consisted of Outlook users cursing Microsoft for their sorry "export" function.
But now the dirty work has been done for you. If you are a programmer and
need to customize the export, have a 10-30 minute review of the code. If you
still can't
figure out what needs to be done, I humbly
suggest you find a new line of work. I like to suggest ditch digging as a less
mentally demanding form of work. With the code provided you can grab anything from the message store
you want and output it in any
format you want. I found that the whole PST is open and the code provided here is
everything you need to work the "magic" for your own needs. I say
"magic" because that's what it takes to utilize Microsoft's CDO
documentation. Good luck if you need to refer to it. Be sure and attach a rope
around your waist which is tightly secured to your desk if you have to descend
into the abyss of vague object property/method descriptions.
Note to competent programmers: If you make some substantial changes to increase the utility of this utility I'd appreciate it if you would email me an updated copy of the source project.
Note to sub-average programmers and pay-check collecting programmers: Enjoy the free source and don't forget to conserve Internet SMTP bandwidth. A byte is a precious thing to waste.
You can use the source for any purpose. There's no need to contact me. But you, or your company, are responsible for any liability issues that may arise from use or misuse of the source or binary. We are not liable for damages, real or supposed, incurred by a 3rd party for your use of the source or binary in any products you distribute, free or for fee. If you don't agree with the previous statement don't use the source or binary. Sorry to be so blunt but there are enough litigant-happy losers in society to rain on everyone else.
The author is one of the least opinionated, most soft spoken developers to ever walk the face of the earth. His writing skills were developed after years of studying Mr. Buford Pusser's "methods".
