Managing hard drive pst files

[chetanh]

Hi,
I just started new in this organization and we are not supposed to
have any pst files on HDD. After i ran a SMS report i found 1800 pst
files on various computers and most computers had multiple pst files.
I also found that several users login to the computer and the pst
files are saved anywhre from c:\temp to c:\mydata folder.
Because of the sheer number of pst files it is not possible for
helpdesk to visit every computer and migrate the file to a shared
drive and modify the profile to reflect the change. I need to get all
the pst files off the local computer and on the network.

Has anyone else faced this situation before. How has this been
handeled. If this is not the right forum to post this question then
please let me know

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You really don't want to go there; connecting to pst-files stored on a
networkshare is not recommended nor supported by Microsoft as you are very
likely to hit performance and corruption issues; pst-files have been
designed for local access only.

Remind your users that they are not allowed to use pst-files and that you'll
be enforcing this policy in x-days. Instruct them what to do with the item
in the pst-files (like to store them on a backup medium or to restore the
items to the Exchange server so that the serverside archiving solution can
do its work) and after that period disable the use of pst-files by GPO.