Outlook opens PST files not associated with a particular account

[Davide Santachiara - DTM]

Dear Sirs,

In our office we use Outlook 2003 on Vista Business or Windows XP PRO with
multiple account configured for POP3 access and each account has its own PST
file associated. In general there is one personal email account plus three
company email addresses which can be accessed by everybody. PST files are on
a server with Windows 2000 server.

We have a very annoying problem as after some time the Outlook accounts are
configured when opening one account (in general the personal one) some or all
the other PST files associated with different Outlook account are also
opened. This means that nobody is anymore able to access these accounts even
if they are not actually used. The PST files which are opened are in no way
associated with that particular account but to other Outlook account on that
machine.

The only fix for this is to delete all the Outlook accounts and start from
scratch re-configuring them. This is of course very annoying as for each
workstation this takes at least half an hour and the problem, especially with
Vista Business 64 bits, happens quite frequently. I.e. after two or three
weeks I have reconfigured the Outlook accounts the problem is again there.

Is this problem known, and if yes are there solutions?

Thank you

Best regards

D.Santachiara
DTM s.r.l.

 

[Ben M. Schorr, MVP]

Do you actually have separate Windows logins for the machine or just
separate Outlook profiles within a single login?

Storing your default mail PST on a server isn't a supported configuration,
by the way. Yes, I know it works for a lot of people, for a while at least,
but it's also a recipe for data file corruption and performance issues.
Really better to store the default message files on the local drive if you
have to use PSTs.


--
-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
http://www.officeforlawyers.com/outlook.htm

 

[Davide Santachiara - DTM]

Dear Ben,

There is a single Windows login with different Outlook profiles.

With respect to your second sentence in general we never had problems of
data corruption or speed even with very large PST files by having the PST
files on a server. Also the problem we are experiencing started to happen
since some months and we used the same identical configuration for years
without any problem. We experienced the problem with Outlook 2003 both on
W2000, XP PRO and Vista Business PCs, however with the latter the problem
seems to happen extremely frequently after having deleted and reconfigured
the Outlook profiles.

Best regards

Davide

 

[Gordon]

With respect to your second sentence in general we never had problems of
data corruption or speed even with very large PST files by having the PST
files on a server.

You've been EXTREMELY lucky then.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

In our office we use Outlook 2003 on Vista Business or Windows XP PRO with
multiple account configured for POP3 access and each account has its own PST
file associated. In general there is one personal email account plus three
company email addresses which can be accessed by everybody. PST files are on
a server with Windows 2000 server.

Sorry, but this isn't accurate. PSTs are not connected with accounts in any
way. In Outlook 2003, all POP accounts feed into the same PST, the delivery
location PST.

We have a very annoying problem as after some time the Outlook accounts are
configured when opening one account (in general the personal one) some or
all
the other PST files associated with different Outlook account are also
opened. This means that nobody is anymore able to access these accounts even
if they are not actually used. The PST files which are opened are in no way
associated with that particular account but to other Outlook account on that
machine.

All PSTs in the same mail profile all open at the same time. This is always
the case. What is it you're trying to achieve?

 

[Davide Santachiara - DTM]

Dear Brian,

Sorry I was not accurate in my explanation. I did not want to say "multiple
account" but "multiple profiles". I.e. there are 3-4 Outlook profiles
accessed with the same login/same workstation. One is for the personal email
addresses, the other profiles access to shared PST which can be accessed by
different workstation in case of need.

What is happening is that when opening the personal profile (which is
associated to a pop3 account and PST file) also some of other shared PST
files which are defined in different profiles are opened even if they do not
appear either in the configuration of that profile or in the folder window of
Outlook. I can check this as the shared PST are on a W2000 server. Of course
when this happens other people cannot access to the shared PST as they are
"locked" by another worskstation even if it should not be locked.

It seems the problem has been solved by assigning a password to the shared
PST files. This seems to have stopped the personal profile of Outlook to open
also PST defined in other profiles

I hope this explained better what is happening

Best regards

Davide

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

What is happening is that when opening the personal profile (which is
associated to a pop3 account and PST file) also some of other shared PST
files which are defined in different profiles are opened even if they do not
appear either in the configuration of that profile or in the folder window
of
Outlook. I can check this as the shared PST are on a W2000 server. Of course
when this happens other people cannot access to the shared PST as they are
"locked" by another worskstation even if it should not be locked.

There's no way I can imagine that a PST will open in Outlook unless it has
been included in the mail profile. There's somehting more at play than you're
described. I hope the common PSTs are not on network shares. You run a
significant risk of damaging them and losing data if they are.