How to close Outlook automatically before a backup?

[Guest]

This is really more of a general question, but it arises in conjuction with
Outlook issues.

After some users experienced crashes in Outllook 2000 due to oversize, I am
implementing rolling 3 days backups of PST files, so that we can at least go
back to an earlier date if the size is exceeded again.
I know users should archive old mail and clean out mail boxes but not
everybody is disciplined enough ...!!@!##...

Now the question:
For a PST file to be copied, Outlook must first be closed otherwise the
backup fails.
Since users often forget to shutdown Outlook at the end of the day, is there
a way or a program capable of closing it (or other programs for that matter),
automatically, so that the unattended computer closes Outlook before the
automatic backup?

Thank you everybody for any suggestion you can provide.
Gino

 

[DL]

Schedule a Killtask

 

[Guest]

Thank you very much for the suggestion.
I found an application "KillProcess 2.4", which instantly kills an
application silently, so I can schedule that to occur a few minutes before
the backup kicks in.
I only have one concern: if Outlook is in the process of receiving mail
when the process is killed, could the abrupt interruption corrupt the Outlook
file?
Regards
Gino

 

[Brian Tillman]

Thank you very much for the suggestion.
I found an application "KillProcess 2.4", which instantly kills an
application silently, so I can schedule that to occur a few minutes
before the backup kicks in.
I only have one concern: if Outlook is in the process of receiving
mail when the process is killed, could the abrupt interruption
corrupt the Outlook file?

Assuming that Outlook has exit handlers that clean up properly and that
KillProcess invokes those exit handlers, yes However, I wouldn't trust it
until I knew for sure.

 

[Guest]

Thank you Brian.
I guess that it is difficult to know if a process Killing software behaves
safely towards all applications.
So I should probably look for a program (a macro?) which can simply send a
"Close" command to Outlook rather than kill the process.
From what I have seen, Outlook waits for a receive mail operation to
complete before exiting and therefore I guess that no file corruption will
occur following a "Close" command.
If you or anybody knows of any such program please let me know.
Thank you again.
Gino