Do's & Don'ts

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Norman

According to some posts:

Don't export your pst as a pst, it loses data?
Don't import a pst, it loses data?
Is this function broken and unfixable?
Don't copy your pst to another machine, then connect with it because it will
create duplicates if the messages are still on the server? Something about
the messages being downloaded already isn't stored in the pst.

From long ago, you could run more than one machine against the same pst as
long as they both were connected at same time. Is that still true?

Is there a list of these do's and don'ts somewhere?

Norman
 
Norman said:
According to some posts:

Don't export your pst as a pst, it loses data?
Correct

Don't import a pst, it loses data?
Correct

Is this function broken and unfixable?
Click to expand...

No - it's not designed to transfer data from Outlook to Outlook - it's
designed to transfer data to/from Outlook to/from third-party applications.
 
From long ago, you could run more than one machine against the same pst as
long as they both were connected at same time. Is that still true?
Click to expand...

A pst can only be accessed by a single instance of OL
 
DL said:
A pst can only be accessed by a single instance of OL
Click to expand...

at any one time. A pst file can be accessed by more than one instance of
Outlook, but not at the same time!
 
Thanks for clarifying that point. It might only be useful if I should use it
as some sort of alternate access restricted to self (still hard to be two
places at same time) and another machine backup in case one goes down. That
is having a second machine set up to constantly be backing up a copy of the
pst from the first machine where the shared pst exists. (probably a bad idea
to be backing up while it is being accessed from either)

Norman
 
Norman said:
According to some posts:

Don't export your pst as a pst, it loses data?
Correct

Don't import a pst, it loses data?
Correct.

Is this function broken and unfixable?
Click to expand...

While some would consider it broken, I doubt it will ever be "fixed" because
there are better ways to transfer data from Outlook to Outlook. You don't
export and import a Word document from Word to Word. Likewise, you don't
export and import an Outlook-native file with Outlook. There are situations
when exporting and importing are appropriate and when you understand the
limitations of those operations, they work perfectly, so in that sense,
nothing's broken. They're not suitable for "imaging" a pst, however, and
that's how most people try to use them.
Don't copy your pst to another machine, then connect with it because
it will create duplicates if the messages are still on the server?
Click to expand...

Sometimes, yes.
Something about the messages being downloaded already isn't stored in
the pst.
Click to expand...

Correct. Data about what server items have been downloaded already and
which have not, whether kept in the PST or elsewhere, is strictly Outlook
instance-specific and cannot be transferred between Outlook instances.
From long ago, you could run more than one machine against the same
pst as long as they both were connected at same time. Is that still
true?
Click to expand...

I don't know if that's ever been true. As far as I know, PSTs have always
been able to be opened only by a single instance of Outlook at any one time.
 
Thanks for trying to get me up to speed on this.
I made a fat finger error in that the last statement should have read, "were
NOT connected at the same time."
Thanks again.
Norman
 
Norman said:
I made a fat finger error in that the last statement should have
read, "were NOT connected at the same time."
Click to expand...

You are correct, then. As long as only one mail profile is accessing a PST,
you can have that PST defined in more than one profile, including a PST that
is network-shared, although that has attendant problems and is not
supported.
 
Attendant? Do you mean making sure only one access is occurring?

Saw something about accessing a pst over a network could be slow I think.
Certainly poses the question in my mind if that would be like accessing any
file across a network or if there is something special relating to pst
files.
Some problems including that may have went away with 2K3 with the move to
unicode? Seems I need to look into what that is. Right now my best guess for
speeding up in that fashion is some sort of preshared translator chart so
you don't have to send every bit of data.
Thanks
Norman
 
Another question has popped to mind. I have need of doing some archiving
because of the size of my pst. (running OL2K).
From memory, I have seen many posts where people were having some problem
relating to archive function. Some were breaking the size limit with it as
well. Some were having problems that just didn't seem to have a direct
explanation and I think some were finding resolution with scanpst or other
efforts. Some just gave up, as I recall.
So in trying to avoid the pitfalls of others, are there any hints to
archiving? My mind has connected the functions of exporting to pst and
Outlook doing auto archiving as not terribly different functions.
The data loss from exporting to pst? or does it occur when you import the
pst, or both?
My experience with archiving did not go well and from memory it may have
been a conglomeration of export-import pst trying to create a backup of the
archive.pst. Then brought the archive into outlook via services (personal
folder) and then exported as pst. Don't remember if I then imported, but
somewhere around this point, KaBoom!

Although a rough road, I was able to reassemble the main pst. That is make
another new one, (didn't back it up) which I had worked on for days just
prior to the archiving attempt, which was going to be my safety net. The pst
ruined by the deletions in archiving was an assemblage of multiple pst files
from over a period of years from different machines and some that had just
stopped working and I didn't know how to fix back then.

So now I'm smart enough to back up the pst itself. And don't use some backup
programs that come with burner software as they had been proprietary and
without "that" software you can't even see the file in its native name. And
then it becomes problematic if you use more than one software package like
maybe multiple machines. Upgrade or change out a drive and it gets worse,
especially if it is the drive you used to create the backup.

Until I figure out all the nuances, or at least the major ones to using the
archive feature, hopefully you can help, I will split my main pst into two
files. And just by date isn't viable unless I load both all the time.

Thanks again Brian.
I hope you can hint at some good organizing skills.

Norman

That is set up some archiving,
 
Attendant? Do you mean making sure only one access is occurring?
Click to expand...

Well, that's one.
Saw something about accessing a pst over a network could be slow I think.
Certainly poses the question in my mind if that would be like accessing
any
file across a network or if there is something special relating to pst
files.
Some problems including that may have went away with 2K3 with the move to
unicode? Seems I need to look into what that is. Right now my best guess
for
speeding up in that fashion is some sort of preshared translator chart so
you don't have to send every bit of data.
Click to expand...

From what I've read, the I/O protocols used to access a network object are
somewhat different that those used to access a local object and that the I/O
required to access PSTs is not well-handled by network I/O. So, minor
network interruptions may have a negative impact on the integrity of a
network-hosted PST. Most of the time, it should work just fine, but there
are more chances of PST corruption when it's accessed over the network as
compared to a locally accessed PST. Just make regular good backups and you
should be covered.
 
I read that about the network not handling pst files not very efficiently.
Not sure I got that point about possibly corrupting the pst. Thanks.
Norman
 
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