Need solutions for quickly growing mega-sized PSTs.

[LRW]

I'm the defacto IT guy at a small printing company. We're all using
Outlook XP.
Half the employees here get as part of their job, dozens of .5 to 5MB
e-mails a day. It's to the point where some PST files get to over 1GB!

Problems ensue, and I try to set up archiving to help out, but it's
almost a lost cause, because they're constantly having to look through
the archive and seach for past e-mails, and we end up with an archive
of 1.5GB, a PST with 1.5GB, a 2nd archive folder at 1.5GB, the PST
from a former employee they need access to at 1.5GB, etc. It's just
insane.

I'm not MCSE, or Office Certified or whatever, so I need some help,
some tips on how I can manage this e-mail problem. Is there some
advanced archiving tools, maybe 3rd-party that works with Outlook? Are
there some tried and true standard practices all real IT managers know
about and use? Would exchange server help in some way?

Any advice or suggestion would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Liam

 

[DL]

Not a solution, but this may assist with regard searching pst's
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011415261033.aspx

 

[Alphonse]

Maybe not a solution, but... if these are e-mails containing attachments,
wouldn't it be better to save the attachments and delete them from the
e-mails? This could prevent them from having problems that come with
oversized pst files, and they would be doing searches on a HD folder(s)
instead of e-mails. I know that users can get testy about this, but when
push comes to shove... telling them that otherwise they risk losing
everything can help in convincing them sometimes.

I believe that there are programs that will help accomplish this, even
linking the e-mail to the respective saved attachment, but unfortunately I
can't remember the names.
HTH

 

[Brian Tillman]

Not a solution, but this may assist with regard searching pst's
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011415261033.aspx

Google Desktop might also help: http://desktop.google.com/ .

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

You might seriously consider upgrading to Outlook 2003, which supports much
larger .pst files.

ALso, at http://www.slipstick.com/addins/housekeeping.htm, you'll find tools
to strip attachments, which are probably the cause of the large message
sizes.