RSS Feed Synchronization

Moving computers is always stressful, and moving RSS feeds from one machine to another is even more painful. This week I moved over to a (literally) shiny new machine and hoped my RSS would follow, but there were some glitches. I use Outlook 2007 + Exchange for reading syndicated feeds (I realise other readers are available) and I like the synchronization with Internet Explorer's feed list. However, if you add a few hundered feeds at once to IE (via the File > Import / Export option), Outlook only gets the first 10 or so before giving up. A reliable (if tedious) way to do the integration is as follows:

1. Export your feeds as an OPML file on your old computer: File > Import and Export... > Export RSS Feeds to an OPML file


2. Move to your new computer


3. Delete any RSS feeds that are registered in Outlook: Tools > Account Settings > RSS Feeds


4. Delete the RSS feed list for IE by deleting all files in %LocalAppData%/Microsoft/Feeds


5. Delete all of your RSS folders. This is especially tedious because of a lack of multi-select


6. Make sure that RSS feeds are synchronized between IE and Outlook: Tools > Options > Other > Advanced Options... > Sync RSS Feeds to the Common Feed List


7. Add the RSS feeds by importing the OPML file in Outlook: File > Import and Export... > Import RSS Feeds from an OPML file

Other hightlights of the move included a UI failure caused by local file caching and a UI deadlock apparently caused by appearance of a password dialog (some of my PST files are password protected).