30 mins before leaving to go home, I got a call from the MD he has a
problem with Outlook 2000.

A bit of background info: Its Outlook 2000 on Windows 2000 connecting
to Exchange 2000.
His PST and PAB are stored on mapped network shares (V drive) and I
remotely connect to his PC via WinVNC.


The problem is he has a PST that is nearly 2 gig in size and whatever
work you do in this Personal Folder Outlook hangs (what ever you do).

I have told him his problems are related to the 2gig PST and he has
allowed me to delete any emails pre Oct 2002.

The problem is that what ever I do to the "Store" PST Outlook will hang.
I have tried every option possible to delete pre Oct 2002 emails from
the "Store" PST plus other things like moving emails to different folders,
archiving the email, compressing the PST but every thing hangs Outlook
2000 whatever I try to do to the "Stores" PST.

Outlook sends and receives fine, it’s just a PST problem, so what other
options do I have?

Can I via exchange 2000 back up his PST but choose only to backup
emails after Oct 2002, if I could do this then I would delete the PST and
make a new one from the backup of post Oct 2002 emails problem solved.


Put on your thinking caps please I said I would have a solution by the morning.

Jason, you can copy his PST anywhere you please.

check this out... http://www.mailnavigator.com/reading_ms_ou..._pst_files.html

PST Reader might help ya or one of the other programs.

Also, how about creating a new PST and hooking him to that. Then, import the 2 Gig one, but filter the out the shit you don't want and don't suck in the sent messages until you are sure it works.

The Sent folder alone is probably a Gig in size

I know the PST can go anywhere, its just stored on a network dirve so it can be backed up.

Its just 1 personal folder called Stores that is coming close to the PST limit of 2 GIG and causing Outlook to hang when working in this folder.

So I make a new PST then how do I filter out emails pre Oct 2002 which is probably half the 1.8 gig to this new PST ?

open outlook as that user

click on File->Import and Export

choose to import a file, then choose .pst extension and point it at the PST you want to import from

then choose "Do not import duplicates" and hit Next

then there is a button labled "Filter" under the file chooser text box near the top right of the dialog

You can filter based on time and date

post back and let me know if it works. since it is huge, outlook may still puke.

you may have to look to 3rd party tools

Jason, try running the inbox repair tool.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...Ben-us%3B197315

Thanks both I will post what the outcome is tommorow.

J, this is the 2 GB repair utility

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;EN-US;296088

it was at the end of the page posted by our feind ace...

try the import export thing just to let us know if that would work... or if it too makes outlook puke

Crap, I missed that Manny. Good catch.

Another option might be to Archive some of the older stuff. That way, it is still available, but is not stored in the same PST as the newer email.

I added access to the inbox to a spare machine, ran the 2GIG repair utility (took ages), this managed to get the PST working enough to remove half of the emails.

Now the PST is under a Gig but still large, set autoarchive to clean out messages older than 4 months.


Thanks for the help all

TRy - ost to pst, know how convert all information from Microsoft Exchange (files with the .ost extension) into files of the Microsoft Outlook mail client (.pst files) - OstToPst procedure, allows you to effectively solve problem ost pst conversion, use the ost to pst conversion tool to easily move your messages, contacts, notes, meetings, reminders, tasks and all other information, also effectively convert all information from the local Microsoft Exchange storage into a Microsoft Outlook file - ost pst conversion and convert OST PST file when the user account has been deleted from the Microsoft Exchange server.

your main problem is exceeded the size of PST file. Old version of the Outlook support only 2GB PST file size. Increasing uses of emails, the size of PST file get larger than 2GB. Due to larger size PST file get corrupted and all your mails and contacts are lost.

Inbox repair tool can help you to recover all emails and contacts from corrupted PST file. But if problem get complex inbox repair tool cannot correct the problem. In this condition, outlook pst repair software can help you. Outlook pst repair software support larger then PST files. First you can try demo version and if satisfied with preview, get full version of the software.

Hi,

Your PST file is oversized. Microsoft Outlook 2002 and earlier versions limit the size of Personal Folders (PST) file to 2GB. Whenever the PST file reaches or exceeds that limit, you will not be able to open or load it any more, or you cannot add any new data to it. This is called oversized PST file problem. More detailed information can be found at http://www.datanumen.com/aor/problems/2gb-pst.htm

You can use Advanced Outlook Repair to solve the problem, by either converting it into Outlook 2003 format ( http://www.datanumen.com/aor/problems/convert-2gb-pst.htm ), or splitting it into smaller pieces ( http://www.datanumen.com/aor/problems/split-2gb-pst.htm )

http://www.datanumen.com/aor/ contains the detailed information about Advanced Outlook Repair.

And you can also download a free demo version at http://www.datanumen.com/aor/aor.exe

Alan