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Outlook & 2GB PST limit

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lanux128:
i personally use Thunderbird but a friend who uses Outlook frequently encounters this problem of his INBOX getting to the 2GB limit after that all data is thrashed. i was thinking a solution via AHK but i'm not allowed install anything (the company he works is a bit paranoid). now i'd like to know is there a way where he can set an alert upon the mailbox reaching a certain size?

P.S. [rant]why doesn't Outlook have built-in checks for these situations?[/rant]

f0dder:
Hm, does outlook corrupt on 2GB boxes? Does this affect only outlook or OE as well? And is this an outlook problem, or does the company do something stupid like use the FAT filesystem instead of NTFS?

Carol Haynes:
Outlook 2003 introduced a different format PST file that doesn't suffer from this problem.

Actually a 2Gb PST file is madness as, at best, it will reduce Outlook to a crawl. If the file is corrupted your friend could try using the Inbox Repair Tool (tell him to do a search for ScanPST.exe and then double click it - he then has to find the damaged PST file and click go - the damaged file is backed up before any changes in the same folder with a .BAK extension).

A simple answer is to set up the Archive function properly so that stuff older than a chosen amount is hived off to archived PST files. You can still add those archives to you profile so that the data is instantly available at any time (and loaded automatically when you open Outlook) but it will be faster and you can keep your archives at a sensible size so that everything zips along.

There is also a free addon for MS Outlook from the MS Office website which allows you to backup your current PST file automatically.

lanux128:
A simple answer is to set up the Archive function properly so that stuff older than a chosen amount is hived off to archived PST files.-Carol Haynes (January 22, 2008, 03:52 AM)
--- End quote ---

is there a how-to guide for doing this? also where is the PST file for the Inbox & what is it named as?

Hm, does outlook corrupt on 2GB boxes? Does this affect only outlook or OE as well? And is this an outlook problem, or does the company do something stupid like use the FAT filesystem instead of NTFS?-f0dder (January 22, 2008, 01:19 AM)
--- End quote ---

no, they use NTFS and there is a lot of PDF, DOC, PPT & XLS attachments pinged around co-workers.

Dirhael:
Microsoft did in no way fix this problem with Outlook 2003, and I would strongly suggest anyone to keep their PST/OST files well below 2GB. I struggled enough with this problem back when I used to work on the internal tech support in HP to know that this problem is way to common in *any* Outlook version (well I don't know about 2007 since that was after I left, but I doubt they've done much with it).

Besides, as Carol already mentioned, large PST files will most definitely slow down Outlook. Also, can you imagine the amount of emails lost should this single huge PST file be deleted or corrupted beyond repair?

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