Why does O2003 update date stamp on older archive files?

[tcarp]

Every year I create an additional .pst file for archiving a specific calendar
year. In other words, I recently created one named Archive 2008.pst (I
already have Archive 2004 through 2007 pst files).

I manually move all inbox, deleted, and outbox items with (in this case) a
2008 date into the pst. I'll spend some time deleting items I know I'll
never want again, and then do a Compact. Once these archive files are set
up, it would be extremely rare to open them and even rarer to change them
(adding new items or deleting old ones).

What's a little frustrating is that it appears that O2003 is updating the
update date for these files (I think it's doing it to all). When I run
incremental backups the files get selected. Since I'm not making any
changes, O2003 must be doing something.

Does anyone know whether/why O2003 would be making changes to old archive
files like this? I've checked and the archive settings are pointing to
Archive Current.pst which is where the current year archiving is done. I've
also checked and no new entries with a date outside the archive file range
(e.g. no non-2007 entries in Archive 2007.pst).

I checked this morning and all the archive files (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007,
2008, and Current) have today's date stamp although the time stamp is
slightly different.

Thanks

Tom

 

[DL]

If these Archives are open within Outlook, ie they show in your tree view,
then they are shown to have been modified, even if you dont access them,
whenever Outlook is opened & closed, so your backup will include these
files.
(Outlook requires read/write access to any pst that is open within Outlook)