Further: Getting rid of unwanted PST file--2 questions

J

Joe McGuire

I closed OL 2003 on my home computer and now it won't open, insisting that
it is missing the unwanted PST file!
 
J

Joe McGuire

Thanks, but (on my Office PC) OL will not allow me to close that Personal
Folders Folder (PFF-1), the one from which I have moved all the mail etc to
folders in the second PFF (PFF-2). "Close folder" is greyed out for PFF-1,
the unneeded PFF. In addition there is no longer any data in PFF-1 since I
either moved it to folders in PFF-2 or deleted it (and emptied the deleted
items folder). I can close PFF-2, no problem, and doing so seems to update
the PST files for each. Any suggestions for getting rid of the unwanted
PFF/PST? Thanks again!

(Once I get this working properly I can get to work having it communicate
with my PDA/Cell Phone)

Michael Bauer said:
So, you didn't close the PST file first like Pat suggested. Restore the
file, open Outlook, right click on the PST file you want to remove and
click
"Close [folder name]".

--
Best regards
Michael Bauer - MVP Outlook
Outlook Categories? The Tool:

<http://www.vboffice.net/product.html?id=2006063&cmd=detail&lang=en&pub=6>

Am Wed, 6 Feb 2008 22:24:28 -0500 schrieb Joe McGuire:
I closed OL 2003 on my home computer and now it won't open, insisting
that
it is missing the unwanted PST file!
 
J

Joe McGuire

Thanks, but the unwanted file on my home PC does not show up in Control
Panel, Mail, Data Files. Others do, but not the unwanted one that OL keeps
missing. OL gives me this error message every few minutes: "Unable to start
processing services. The file c:\Documents and Settings\...\unwanted.pst
could not be found." I am getting e-mail from my 2 e-mail accounts but I
cannot reply. If I try to I get this error message: "The file c:\Documents
and Settings\...\unwanted.pst could not be found." One of those messages
needs an urgent reply so I am scavenging around for a way to do this.
 
J

Joe McGuire

Any way to recover my data from OL on my home computer? I had asked about
all the contacts that got dropped when I deleted them from one of the two
Personal Folders Folders. Now even all the e-mail is gone as a result of
trying to clean up one of the two PFFs. It seems that anything I do on one
PFF gets mirrored in the other. Basically, I have no data whatsoever
anymore, even on the POP3 e-mail server as OL somehow on its own changed my
setting to leave messages there. I never realized how dangerous this
software can be. Meanwhile I am going to see if returning the original
unwanted PST file--the one OL keeps saying it can't find--will do any good.
 
J

Joe McGuire

I renamed the original unwanted PST to what OL wanted and it now it seems to
be happy. Bereft of data (although it did a fine job holding on to the
Archived stuff) of course, but pleasantly indifferent to that inconvenient
fact. Actually, 2 PFFs devoid of any data and OL will not allow me to
close either ("You cannot close the mailbox that contains your calendar,
contacts and inbox."). Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
M

Michael Bauer [MVP - Outlook]

You cannot close the defaul PST. So, before you can close and remove that
one you must make the new PST your default store. You can do that via
Control Panel/E-Mail.

--
Best regards
Michael Bauer - MVP Outlook
Use Outlook Categories? This is Your Tool:
<http://www.vboffice.net/product.html?id=2006063&cmd=detail&lang=en&pub=6>

Am Thu, 7 Feb 2008 16:09:44 -0500 schrieb Joe McGuire:
Thanks, but (on my Office PC) OL will not allow me to close that Personal
Folders Folder (PFF-1), the one from which I have moved all the mail etc to
folders in the second PFF (PFF-2). "Close folder" is greyed out for PFF-1,
the unneeded PFF. In addition there is no longer any data in PFF-1 since I
either moved it to folders in PFF-2 or deleted it (and emptied the deleted
items folder). I can close PFF-2, no problem, and doing so seems to update
the PST files for each. Any suggestions for getting rid of the unwanted
PFF/PST? Thanks again!

(Once I get this working properly I can get to work having it communicate
with my PDA/Cell Phone)

Michael Bauer said:
So, you didn't close the PST file first like Pat suggested. Restore the
file, open Outlook, right click on the PST file you want to remove and
click
"Close [folder name]".
Am Wed, 6 Feb 2008 22:24:28 -0500 schrieb Joe McGuire:
 
B

Brian Tillman

Joe McGuire said:
I renamed the original unwanted PST to what OL wanted and it now it
seems to be happy. Bereft of data (although it did a fine job
holding on to the Archived stuff) of course, but pleasantly
indifferent to that inconvenient fact. Actually, 2 PFFs devoid of
any data and OL will not allow me to close either ("You cannot close
the mailbox that contains your calendar, contacts and inbox."). Any
suggestions would be appreciated.

Create a new mail profile, including only the PST(s) you wish to use.
http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/newprofile.htm
 
J

Joe McGuire

OK. I created a new profile JWM, added a POP3 e-mail account to it and set
OL to use that profile when it opens. Then I opened OL. Checked in Win
Explorer and verified the new pst (outlook-3.pst, with 265kb, which is
consistent with being empty of data). But when OL opened next neither of
the 2 Personal Folders Folders related to that PST file. Both are tied to
Outlook.pst (about 11,200kb) and my archive.pst file. I can close the
archive file but not the two PFF files. I even tried "import" even though
the message in this BB is pretty much never to import, but that option only
allowed me to import Outlook-3 into one of those empty PFFs so I did not do
it. Leaving aside the lingering problem of how to find my Contacts,
calendar and e-mail, how do I get OL to open and actually use Outlook-3.pst?
Once OL is running is there any way to tell which profile it actually used?
It sure doesn't seem like OL is using JWM since it is not displayignthe PFF
that ought to come from Outlook-3.pst.
 
B

Brian Tillman

Joe McGuire said:
OK. I created a new profile JWM, added a POP3 e-mail account to it
and set OL to use that profile when it opens. Then I opened OL.
Checked in Win Explorer and verified the new pst (outlook-3.pst, with
265kb, which is consistent with being empty of data). But when OL
opened next neither of the 2 Personal Folders Folders related to that
PST file. Both are tied to Outlook.pst (about 11,200kb) and my
archive.pst file. I can close the archive file but not the two PFF
files. I even tried "import" even though the message in this BB is
pretty much never to import, but that option only allowed me to
import Outlook-3 into one of those empty PFFs so I did not do it. Leaving
aside the lingering problem of how to find my Contacts,
calendar and e-mail, how do I get OL to open and actually use
Outlook-3.pst? Once OL is running is there any way to tell which
profile it actually used? It sure doesn't seem like OL is using JWM
since it is not displayignthe PFF that ought to come from
Outlook-3.pst.

This just doesn't seem possible to me. Sorry, I can't figure it out without
being able to see what you've done.
 
J

Joe McGuire

thanks. Unfortunately, things are as I described. Since what is happening
(particularly the profile thing you suggested) does not make any sense to
you, it confirms my suspicion that Outlook somehow got corrupted. Sadly, I
did not keep useful notes of what I did over these past several days and to
be honest I cannot recall the details. And to get things even more confused
I was trying to deal with related but not identical issues on two different
computers, my home PC and my office PC. And I opened an additional thread
and many sub-threads through relies. The result is that the communications
are a bit incoherent, which is probably an understatement. At least Outlook
on my office PC seems to be working (after moving the data from my prior
firm to a new computer). There are some issues there but I will raise them
in a separate posting.
 

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