While earlier versions of Microsoft Outlook, such as Outlook 97 and Outlook 2002 make use of the Import/Export feature of PST files, newer Outlook family products can open up a PST file directly without the need of special user driven functionality. Having this in mind, users are able to benefit from the capability of importing and exporting a PST file in order to make use of data from newer versions of Outlook onto even older computers or older software configurations.
In order to import a PST file, the user must first identify the version of Microsoft Outlook that is currently running.
Outlook 2003 / 2007 and 2010 Users:
click on “Open” in the “File” menu of the top toolbar. Then, as a new dialog box appears, browse to the location of the PST file that needs to be imported and click on the “Open” button. Depending on the hardware configuration of the computer as well as the size of the PST file itself, the import process may require somewhere between 5 and 30 minutes, in the case of very large PST files.
It’s a good idea to make a backup of your PST file before importing and exporting. In theory nothing should go wrong but most people have a lot of important contacts and e-mails they do not want to loose so having a backup in general is a good idea.
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