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NOTE: I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING RELATED TO THIS TUTORIAL THAT CAUSES ANY ERRORS ON YOUR COMPUTER.

I was recently asked if it is possible to transfer AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) away messages from one computer to another. After a little looking, it turns out that away messages are stored in the Windows Registry. This makes exporting them and restoring them extremely easy.

Part I: Exporting the Messages
1. Go to Start | Run | and type ‘regedit’ | and click OK

2. Navigate your way to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\America Online\AOL Instant Messenger ™\CurrentVersion\Users\ScreenName\IAmGoneList
You should see something like this:

Outlined here are the away messages.

3. Now for the fun part. Right-click on “IAmGoneList” in the left-hand pane and click on “Export”
You should see something like this:

4. Name the file whatever you want, just remember where you save it, and what you call it.

Part II: Moving and Restoring the file
Now, moving the file can be done many ways. You could put the file on a flash drive, burn it to a CD, use a good old Floppy Disk (Bonus points for using a 5 1/4). In my opinion, I think the easiest way would be to email the file to yourself as an attachment. Whatever way you choose, just make sure you end up with the file on your new computer. Once it’s on the new computer, let’s add it back into the registry.

1. Navigate to the .reg file and double click on it. You should see something like this:

Now all your away messages have been transferred!