Archive Stategies

Most people save their files in the location determined by the particular program that they are using. For example, Microsoft® Word© defaults to C:\Documents and Corel® WordPerfect® to C:\MyFiles. This means that your data files are scattered all over your hard disk, making it hard to locate all your files for archival. We recommend that you create a centralized folder for all of your data and point your software programs’ default data directories to sub-folders beneath that folder.

For example, create a folder on your C: drive called Data. Underneath this folder, create sub-folders for each of your software programs. You might see a folder system that then has the following folders:

And beneath each of these sub-folders you can create more folders to further sub-categorize your data. Now, when you want to back-up your data, simply archive everything under C:\Data. Your files are also much more organized. At Beowurks we actually have a separate drive that is dedicated to data: Drive C: is for programs and Drive D: is for data.

Then there is Microsoft® Outlook Express©, which stores its emails and addresses in quite a convoluted manner. In order to archive these files, you must first find them. Try the following:

Outlook Mail Store (EMails) Folder:

To discover these folders, first launch Outlook. First we will look for the emails or message store. Under the main menu, select Tools then Options . . . The Options dialog box will appear. Select the tab labeled Maintenance. Now click the button Store Folder… You will see where your personal message store is located.

Outlook Addresses Folder:

After finding the message store, cancel from the Options dialog. Under the main menu, select Tools then Address Book… The Address Book window will appear. Under the menu for this window, select Help then About Address Book. In a memo box labeled File: you will the file for your addresses: it should have a WAB extension.