I received an e-mail from a reader asking how to import an Outlook Express address book (saved in the Windows Address Book or .wab file format) into Outlook on a new machine following a hard disk crash. First of all, kudos to this reader for having had the foresight to make a backup of the .wab file in the first place. Too many people forget how important having such a backup is and only discover what they've lost when a catastrophic failure occurs.

Here are the steps to import the .wab file into Outlook. This procedure assumes you have already installed Outlook on your PC and have set up your e-mail account.

1. Choose File|Import and Export…

2. You will see the following dialog
   

• Select the last option in the list: Import Internet Mail and Addresses

• Click Next

• The following dialog will be displayed
  

• Select Outlook Express as the source format

• Click Next

• The following dialog will be displayed
  

• In this case, since there is no existing data, it doesn’t matter which option you select. But, if you had already added one or more contacts to your Outlook Contacts list, you should make a selection appropriate to how you prefer duplicate items get handled.

• Click Finish

• A file explorer dialog will open as pictured below. Navigate to where your backup of the .wab file is located and choose Open and your address book will be imported into Outlook.
  

That’s it!