Menneisyys

Over at a non-English PDA board, I was asked to help with a pretty common problem: extracting WindowsCE databases from ActiveSync STG files. Unfortunately, the only tool to be able to extract stuff from STG files, STGViewer, is unable to do this – it can only extract files, but not databases.

Unfortunately, ActiveSync is pretty useless when it comes to restoring backup files to other device types (even after a ROM upgrade), and, unlike with FSC Backup, it can't be hacked either (see this thread on making FSC Backup cross-restore backup files) to do so. (Not to say Sprite Backup, the by far the best Pocket PC backup apps, also supports cross-restoration).

This is pretty annoying with the Windows CE PIM databases, which are 100% compatible and, therefore, could be freely restorable on Pocket PC's running the same Windows Mobile version.

This is why I've set out to scrutinize the more closely the STG format and succeeded in finding the contacts database and writing a tool that does this automatically.

The utility, finally, has turned out to be not only compatible with STG, but also with the HTC Xbackup Contacts format. On the other hand, it won't restore FSC Backup (it stores the name/number pairs in the opposite direction) and iPAQ/Sprite (the number/name pairs are are separated by several bytes) contacts, however.

Getting it:

It's, as usual with my apps, free. Download the Java class from here. As usual, I also make the source code freely available, get it from here.

Usage:

If you already have a Java Virtual Machine on your desktop PC (if you don't have one, get it from here. Note that, if you want to reduce bandwidth/disk usage – older JVM's are smaller – the app will work even with older JDK versions – even with JDK 1.1), just issue the

java STGContactNumberAndNameExtract inputfile outputfile.csv

command (using any inputfile and outputfile name; the latter should have the csv extension).

After doing this, go to Outlook and in the Contacts view, go to File/Import and Export; choose Import from another program or file, click Next, choose Comma Separated Values (Windows) and click Next again. After this, it'll be pretty easy to go on.

It's highly unlikely I'll rewrite the tool into C# today: I'm really busy and I'm already late from swimming. Tomorrow I'll have tons of meetings + swimming + sauna so won't really have time either.

Other stuff:

You may also want to check out this thread on my Xbackup file extractor tool – you may find it useful if you have a HTC Phone Edition device.

Also, here're my posts on Yahoo -> Outlook/PDA export. Note that it's a bit outdated: when I wrote it, Yahoo had no explicit Outlook-specific export capabilities. The current Outlook export file is 100% compatible with Outlook on the desktop.

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MS MVP- Mobile Devices.