Are *.pst files backwards compatible, anyone, please..?

[John C]

I CANNOT seem to sort out the problem of getting Outlook to start [see
previous posts-column sort for 'John C']. I am thinking of going back to,
say, Office XP of a couple of years ago.

Am I looking for trouble, or are the *.pst files going to open OK once I
have the application installed? I seem to remember that the structure of
these files has been changed "for our own benefit", of course, and wondered
if I was looking for even deeper trouble than the currently inexplicable
absence of a file that is 'supposed' to regenerate itself each time Outlook
is opened - I refer to the famous, but absent from my machine withoutout
permission, file 'outcmd.dat'.

Thank you for your help and patience.

John Crayton

 

[BillR [MVP]]

outcmd.dat is always present. It can be deleted and then it will regenerate.
Outlook 2003 supports both the new Unicode PST file format and the older
ANSI format. The new Unicode format can't be read in versions of Outlook
prior to Outlook 2003 but can be exported to the older ANSI format.