OutlookPCS doesn’t install with new Outlook 2007 or 2010 installation

For many, many years, I have been using a little add-in called OutlookPCS from Microsoft.  If you are not familiar with this tool, it allowed you to take your Contacts and separate them out into any number of folders and then sync those folders into and out of the main “Contacts” folder.  You are probably asking why would I want to do that!?!?  Well, I am guessing that you probably have some sort of “Smart Phone” that has an Address Book which you want to sync with your Outlook Contacts.  Well, if you have your contacts broken out to separate folders, most Smart Phone sync programs won’t allow you to sync with multiple Outlook folders.  Thereby the need for OutlookPCS.  By syncing your Contacts with the individual folders, you can then sync the main Contacts folder with your Smart Phone and get all of your Contacts.  It also allows you to create a Contact on your phone/PDA and then have that Contact put into the correct folder.

This little tool has served me well over the years and as I was setting up a new Windows 7 machine, this was on my list of tasks to accomplish.  But, when I got there I get this nasty little message saying that you must have Outlook 2000 installed.  Now I know that I was running OutlookPCS on my old computer with Outlook 2007 so what was going on.  It turns out that when you upgrade your Outlook (and the other components of the Office Suite), there are a few little pieces left behind from the old version.  It appears that these fragments are sufficient to allow OutlookPCS to think it can be installed.  Unfortunately, it isn’t just a matter of copying on the fragments from one of the versions and I haven’t taken it any further.  So, I am now without my darling little tool.  Hopefully, I will be able to figure it out even if I have to go back and reinstall old versions of Outlook in order to “collect” these fragments.  Until that time, I just have to put up with not syncing my Contacts out to my folders.

What a bummer!  If you have any thoughts, please drop me a line so that I can get my synchronization back.

P.S.  The reason that this post is in my new SharePoint category is that I have been talking about this little gem in my SharePoint class because it is extremely useful to sync the Contacts from a SharePoint site into your Contacts list as well.