We recently converted from NetWare 6 and GroupWise 6 to Windows Server 2003. Since there were less than 10 users, and most email messages are not important after a few days, we used MailSaver to create text file copies of the existing mail messages just in case someone needed them.
Now, a week later, a few users have asked me to get their address book information, and old messages if it is not too much work. (No comment here on moving from NetWare/GroupWise, it wasn't my choice.)
The MailSaver worked great for messages, and for a free download I was really impressed. I now have the old server in my office, and can set up a client computer to access GroupWise.
Are there any simple ways to export the address book for each user, by logging in as that user and then running a utility? If there is a way to export the mail messages as well, that would be great, but the address book is the primary goal at the moment.
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.
If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.
Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.
Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.
Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.
there's a groupwise addressbook export/import utility that uses CSV - works a treat.
here's a link to the commercial version - i think you can download a trial version which may be enough.
http://www.toffa.com/produ
i've never grabbed this, so if it doesn't work for you, post back and i'll email you the old freeware copy that they put out ages ago on coolsolutions. I use it all the time.
I was able to export the address book in .NAB form, but how can I import the address book into Outlook?
As another option, I also configured Outlook 2003 on a WinXP Home PC, but keep getting the "Outlook has encountered a problem and needs to close" message. While this Send/Don't Send message is waiting for my response, I can see that the same mail messages are displayed (as I would see when the GroupWise 6 client is running).
If GroupWise is running, and also GWSync, then Outlook will connect just before the error. Without GroupWise running, OutRage asks for the name/password for the user.
When we revisited www.toffa.com to check for export software, it appears that the program requires GroupWise 6.5 or higher, and we are working with GroupWise 6.0 on this server.
I do believe (this is working from memory) that the .NAB format is a comma-delimited file. You should be able to import it into Excel and export it in the Outlook PAB format, if you can find the header and field type info for both.
I don't think the .NAB format changed between 6.0 and 6.5, so the requirement of GroupWise 6.5.3 and above is probably on the client side, for the api. I don't know if it checks .dll versions to verify that you've got the 6.5.3 client installed or not. Have you tried it, or are you going by the system requirements on the Toffa web page?
Sorry if that's not much help.
Regarding the WinXP Home thing, the problem is WinXP Home. You aren't supposed to use it in any kind of a business network, period. Microsoft will not support you connecting XP Home to a Win2K3 server. Its networking features are deliberately crippled, so I'm not surprised at all that you're having problems with a product that uses networking functions.
The old Outlook Connector required the GroupWise client (or at least part of it) to be running, IIRC, to provide the "gateway" for the connector to let Outlook do its thing. If it's not, then, Outlook will expect you to log in to GroupWise, and the connector will probably launch at least part of the GroupWise client to do that login.
If you want to, you can set up GWIA to provide IMAP access to Outlook "natively." The IMAP POA access wasn't available in 6.0, which is why you'd need to use GWIA. In order to use GWIA for internal IMAP access, you'd have to configure GWIA for "loopback" (not the same as 127.0.0.1 - this is a Novell term, describing how to "loop back" the external interface of GWIA to an internal client.) I don't know if that would give you anything more than IMAP mail access though.
Another option, don't know if you looked at it, is Advansys Formativ runtime. The runtime is a free 30-day trial download, from here: http://www.advansyscorp.co
If it works, then you should probably purchase the runtime licensing since it's kinda underhanded to use it and bolt. Buy it here: http://www.advansyscorp.co
The pricing is not too bad - one user is $15 US, 2-9 users is $9 US each, 10-24 users is $4.50 each, 25-49 users $3.50 each. For your situation (under 10 users) assuming 9 users it would cost a whopping $81 US to save you lots of work, if one of the free applets on coolsolutions does what you need.
Thanks to ShineOn and Floyd99, after trying the Toffa software, we had better luck using the "export group members to CSV.exe" applet from CoolSolutions, which ran fine with the Advansys Formative runtime. ShineOn, we did pay for the license, since the software solved the problem. It was a small price to pay.
Thanks again, ShineOn and Floyd99!
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: ShineOnPosted on 2006-10-31 at 09:26:41ID: 17843702
The address book can be exported in NAB format, which is a specific delimited-text format. If you know what the fields are, you should be able to figure out something.
As far as old messages, I assume that would be archives, and that depends on where the archives were stored, whether or not you can access them. If you can, you should be able to unarchive them and then do the MailSaver thing again.
Of course, you'd have to log in as each user for each export.