Updating to the Release Version of Outlook 2010 from the Beta Removes RSS Feeds
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010Looks like there is a problem during the installation of the release version of Outlook 2010 in that the RSS feeds are not preserved (it appears it keeps the last added feed). Prior to uninstalling the beta version of Outlook 2010, make sure to export the RSS feeds as an OPML file. Then, after the installation is complete, import the OPML file to restore the RSS feeds.
To export the RSS Feeds, click on the File tab in the Ribbon and click on Open on the left pane. Select “Import” to start the Import and Export Wizard. From there, select Export RSS Feeds to an OPML file and continue as directed. Use the same process to Import the RSS Feeds from an OPML file.
If you are in the same boat as I, try restoring a previous version of the RSS Feeds file. On my Windows 7 box, it exists in:
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook
My file ends with .sharing.xml.obi and it was about 3k.
First, close all running instances of Outlook.
Navigating to that directory, right click on the file and select Restore previous versions. Select the most recent version prior to the date of the installation.
Next, make sure to copy that file as it will be rewritten by Outlook when it is run again.
I am unable to determine how to get Outlook to recognize this file so the .obi file needs to be converted to an OPML file that can be imported into Outlook. This is simply achieved through an XSL transformation. By applying the following XSL on the .sharing.xml.obi file, an OPML file is created that can be used to import the RSS feeds into Outlook.
Prior to importing the RSS feeds, delete the folders, otherwise duplicate folders will appear under RSS Feeds.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<opml version="1.0">
<head>
<title>OPML exported from Outlook</title>
<dateCreated>Wed, 12 May 2010 16:00:00 -0400</dateCreated>
<dateModified>Wed, 12 May 2010 16:00:00 -0400</dateModified>
</head>
<body>
<xsl:for-each select="sharing/bindings/binding">
<xsl:element name="outline">
<xsl:attribute name="text"><xsl:value-of select="local/@name"/></xsl:attribute>
<xsl:attribute name="type">rss</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:attribute name="xmlUrl"><xsl:value-of select="remote/@path"/></xsl:attribute>
</xsl:element>
</xsl:for-each>
</body>
</opml>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
