How to restore OneNote 2007 to its default state

This article describes how to restore Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 to its default state. After you perform this procedure, OneNote 2007 will be restored to the state that it was in when you first installed it.

To reset OneNote 2007, follow these steps.

Note Some of the steps are optional.

Step 1: Remove the OneNote 2007 registry subkey

Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate the following registry subkey:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\OneNote
3. Right-click the OneNote registry subkey, and then click Rename.
4. Type OneNoteBackup.
5. Exit Registry Editor.

Step 2: Rename the OneNote Notebooks folder

When you rename the OneNote Notebooks folder, you restore the contents of the OneNote Notebooks folder to the information that was available when you installed OneNote 2007.

Note When you perform this step, all your notes and all the new sections that you created will be removed. You can skip this step if you want to retain your notes.

To rename the OneNote Notebooks folder, follow these steps:

1. Open the My Documents folder.
2. Right-click OneNote Notebooks, and then click Rename.
3. Type Old OneNote Notebooks.

Step 3: Rebuild the index

If you skipped step 2, you may want to rebuild the index. To do this, remove the OneNote Table Of Contents.onetoc2 file. This file is the index of open sections in OneNote 2007. The next time that you start OneNote 2007, a new index is created that has all the sections in the OneNote Notebooks folder. If you do not want to rebuild this index, skip this step. However, if you skip this step, the index will also open all the previously closed sections that were not deleted.

To rebuild the index, follow these steps:

1. Open the My Documents folder, and then open the OneNote Notebooks folder.
2. Right-click OneNote Table Of Contents.onetoc2, and then click Rename.
   
   If you do not see the OneNote Table Of Contents.onetoc2 file, follow these steps:
   1. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
   2. On the View tab, click to clear the Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) check box.
   3. Click Yes when you receive the following message:
      Are you sure you want to display these files?
   4. Click OK.
3. Type OneNote Old TOC.oldonetc2old to rename the file.

Step 4: Remove the Preferences file and the custom Toolbars file

To reset the Preferences file and the custom Toolbars file, remove the existing files. To remove these files, follow these steps:

1. Open the following folder:
   C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Microsoft\OneNote\12.0
   Note In this path, user is the name of the user who is currently logged on to OneNote 2007.
2. Back up the following files to another folder:
   • Preferences.dat
   • Toolbars.dat
   Note If you did not customize your toolbars or your menus, you will not have the Toolbars.dat file.
3. Delete the Preferences.dat file and the Toolbars.dat file from the 12.0 folder.