Outlook 2007, multiple problems, please help!

[twjeff]

Am having some really strange problems with outlook 2007.

1. How do I tell which verison of the pst files I have?

2. Everytime I add a new personal folder it gives me an option of which one
to create, the problem is one is not compatible with another, so if I move
messages from a folder into the new personals folder will I still be able to
acess it or not?

3. One of my pst files, an old achieve file, probably from 2002 or 2003
version is over 2 gigabytes. I don't understnad how that can be...

4. One of my archieve files is not working correctly. I get an error message
that says "The messaging interface has returned an unknown error. If the
problem persists, restart Outlook". I have restarted 100 times and it doesn't
work... Any ideas?

5. Search is really strange. It is telling me "everytime" that my mails are
being indexed and yadda yadda ya, so I can never find what I need. "Outlook
is currently indexing your items. Search results may be incomplete because
items are still being indexed." And then it gives me a bunch of numbers for
how many items are being indexed... honestly this never happend before, but
this has been like this now for six months, I hate it because I cannot find
anything I need. How can I solve this?

6. I have deleted a lot of messages and cleared them out of the delete
folder, but the total memory did not go down recently, it is stuck at 1.8 on
the right side xp window and folder size is 1.91. I don't know what windows
is doing, I really don't.. How can windows say one thing, but the pst file
say another? Ok that is two questions here.

7. Outlook is telling me to delete more messages so I cannot view the search
well, but I just cleaned out an entire folder of amost 500k, which would have
significantly reduced the overall size. But it didn't move, search still
doesn't work. I moved all those messages to a new personal pst file in order
to clear space.

8. If I want to convert everything to the new pst file system how do I do
that? I am using outlook 2007, and no I have not updated my office software
yet, I have other pc issues I am working through first, and then I will
install xp sp3 and the office updates. hopefully by November.

9. Outlook doesn't sometimes check all my mail, it only checks some, I am
guessing something is too full, but I have tried to delete what I can, as I
said something isn't right, even after deleting, the memory usage hasnt
changed.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

Am having some really strange problems with outlook 2007.

1. How do I tell which verison of the pst files I have?

Right-click the root of one of then in the Navigation Pane, choose Properties,
then click Advanced. Examine the Format field. if it contains the string
"97-2002", then it's an old format PST. If it says just "Personal Folders
File", then it should be Unicode and not have the 2GB limit.

2. Everytime I add a new personal folder it gives me an option of which one
to create, the problem is one is not compatible with another, so if I move
messages from a folder into the new personals folder will I still be able to
acess it or not?

Sure, as long as you don't want to access it from Outlook 2002 or earlier.

3. One of my pst files, an old achieve file, probably from 2002 or 2003
version is over 2 gigabytes. I don't understnad how that can be...

If it's an archive file and you've added to it over the years, it will
continue to grow until it becomes too large. If you can open it, delete some
of the data in it because you know you won't need it any more, then compress
it, it should be OK. Otherwise, you'll need to repair it. See
http://www.slipstick.com/problems/repair2gbpst.asp

4. One of my archieve files is not working correctly. I get an error message
that says "The messaging interface has returned an unknown error. If the
problem persists, restart Outlook". I have restarted 100 times and it
doesn't
work... Any ideas?

See if SCANPST helps.

5. Search is really strange. It is telling me "everytime" that my mails are
being indexed and yadda yadda ya, so I can never find what I need. "Outlook
is currently indexing your items. Search results may be incomplete because
items are still being indexed." And then it gives me a bunch of numbers for
how many items are being indexed... honestly this never happend before, but
this has been like this now for six months, I hate it because I cannot find
anything I need. How can I solve this?

I'd reset WIndows Desktop Search and allow it to generate a brand new index.

6. I have deleted a lot of messages and cleared them out of the delete
folder, but the total memory did not go down recently, it is stuck at 1.8 on
the right side xp window and folder size is 1.91. I don't know what windows
is doing, I really don't.. How can windows say one thing, but the pst file
say another? Ok that is two questions here.

Right-click the root of the PST, select Properties, click Advanced, then
Compact Now.

7. Outlook is telling me to delete more messages so I cannot view the search
well, but I just cleaned out an entire folder of amost 500k, which would
have
significantly reduced the overall size. But it didn't move, search still
doesn't work. I moved all those messages to a new personal pst file in
order
to clear space.

Compact the PST.

8. If I want to convert everything to the new pst file system how do I do
that? I am using outlook 2007, and no I have not updated my office software
yet, I have other pc issues I am working through first, and then I will
install xp sp3 and the office updates. hopefully by November.

See this: http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ansi-to-unicode.asp

9. Outlook doesn't sometimes check all my mail, it only checks some, I am
guessing something is too full, but I have tried to delete what I can, as I
said something isn't right, even after deleting, the memory usage hasnt
changed.

I think you may be correct. Clear out the size problems and I'll bet this
will go away.

 

[twjeff]

Hi Brian, thank you for your reply and help!

I have spent some time doing some of the things you said, but I have more to
go..

Some further questions.. I tried scanpst for my oversized archieve file, but
it won't fix it. It errors. It is over 2gb.

Also, a big problem I just noticed.. On top of not being able to look at
many of the folders now in the archeive file, I also noticed that a lot of
mail that I had archieved is completely missing now. I remember during the
archieve that at the end outlook told me the folder is full and could not
complete, but on further inspection all the mail messages disappeared from
both folders.. How can that happen? If the folder was full shouldn't the
archeiving have stopped so nothing was lost? Or do I still have a chance to
recover these? They are very important emails.

If I do not scanpst first and just compress it, would I damage the folder?
Everything in there I need, so it is difficult to delete anything, and there
is not much in the folder at this moment that I can actually view.

Search in outlook is still not working right, and I think I figured out why,
the arhcieved pst file is too big, so search cannot access it.

How do I reserach windows desktop search? And... what will this do? And why
is it called windows, not outlook? Windows not having any issues, it is
outlook that is causing me problems.

Thanks, look forward to hearing from you again.

Jeff

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I have spent some time doing some of the things you said, but I have more to
go..

Some further questions.. I tried scanpst for my oversized archieve file, but
it won't fix it. It errors. It is over 2gb.

Is it an old format PST? Did you look?

Also, a big problem I just noticed.. On top of not being able to look at
many of the folders now in the archeive file, I also noticed that a lot of
mail that I had archieved is completely missing now. I remember during the
archieve that at the end outlook told me the folder is full and could not
complete, but on further inspection all the mail messages disappeared from
both folders.. How can that happen? If the folder was full shouldn't the
archeiving have stopped so nothing was lost? Or do I still have a chance to
recover these? They are very important emails.

Unfortunately, there is a history of messages getting lost when using ANSI
PSTs and the size limit is exceeded. The conditions you describe are why you
make frequent backups. You do have backups, right?

If I do not scanpst first and just compress it, would I damage the folder?
Everything in there I need, so it is difficult to delete anything, and there
is not much in the folder at this moment that I can actually view.

If you can still open the old PST, create a new Unicode PST and copy the
contents of the old PST to it. Your size problem goes away. See
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ansi-to-unicode.asp

How do I reserach windows desktop search? And... what will this do? And why
is it called windows, not outlook? Windows not having any issues, it is
outlook that is causing me problems.

Windows Desktop Search can search any files on your hard drive, Outlook files
included.

 

[wangdong]

Answer he second question:
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

W.D

 

[wangdong]

Answer the second question:
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


W.D