Outlook PST approaching 2gig tools?

[BigLinc]

The PST 2gig corruption problem is a big one for my company and I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction with finding something that can help.

I'm looking for something that will warn (and if possible even prohibit the use of) if a PST file is approaching that dreaded 2gig limit.

Any ideas, thoughts or maybe even other solutions would be great.

Thanks.

 

[kranky]

What version of Outlook?

Microsoft has a utility for Outlook 2002 to warn users when they approach the 2GB limit. You could check here for other ideas.

What our company does is put a 50MB limit on PST size. They do that with Exchange server somehow.

 

[JackBurton]

You're talking about a local pst file, right? You're not talking about mail file size on the Exchange server, right? As far as pst size, I had this one lady who had a 6GB pst file!!! You just have to tell them to break it up. As far as a tool for automatically warning of file size limit, I don't know of one. I can tell you this though, don't try to back up that pst file to a server on another domain. We had issues with anything over 700MB corrupting when we crossed domains. As far as MS, I think they'll only provide support for pst files as large as 500MB, anything over and you're on your own.

 

[BigLinc]

Thanks for the replies, jeez I didn't get back to this till now.

Our company has version 97 to 2000 (no 2002 though). It's absolutely AMAZING to me that Microsoft hasn't addressed this problem, I have my doubts about whatever tool they have in 2002 as well.

 

[Nothinman]

It's absolutely AMAZING to me that Microsoft hasn't addressed this problem,

They have, you have to buy Office 2002 to have PST files >2G.

Why not just setup multiple PST files?

 

[BigLinc]

Why not just setup multiple PST files?

User ignorance.

The user base I support has no clue about it. We used to have a Training Dept. but that entire dept. got the axe because of budget cuts. And of course the firm only just now is upgrading to Win2000 (From NT 4.0) with Office2000 (so we can't go to 2002 for some time yet).

And as I understand it, OL2002 still CAN'T deal with PST files over 2gig. The only thing MS did was added a util that warns you when you get close and then disables the PST from being saved to if it gets REAL close.

 

[Nothinman]

Ah, still a step up since it doesn't get corrupted I guess.

If the users are that bad why not put more disks on the exchange server and lighten up on the quotas?

 

[beer]

I tell my users to not save their attachments in their PST file. Not only does the PST file corrupt, but it makes outlook even slower than usual. I show them how to create a folder in their profile dir and right click -> save as and delete the attachment if encessary. no one has 2 GB of text files/contacts/etc. If they do, god help them.

 

[TheCorm]

I have Outlook 2002 here, did older outlook versions have the option for auto-archiving, you could set that up.

 

[Nothinman]

Auto-archiving overwrites the same PST file everytime it runs, most people don't want that.

 

[BigLinc]

I work for a large Banking/Securities firm...Once upon a time getting to 2GB in the PST took YEARS. But nowadays, with all the email attachments (especially all the company reports on PDF) files are getting larger and larger.

Auto-Archiving isn't a big help because I'd have to be the one going to every desk to set it up, and I'd have to be the one to keep checking on them for size and creating more archived PSTs as they become too large.

Mailbox quotas are set to a PUNY 25mb. And on the Server side I know we're in the 70 to 100 gig capacities. I'm not sure why the Exchange Admins won't allow larger quotas, but realistically these guys would use it right up anyway.

Oh well.

 

[wjones]

http://www.slipstick.com/problems/repair2gbpst.htm
[/i]Office 2000 Service Release 1/1a updates Outlook 2000 so that you cannot add more data as the PST or OST size approaches 2GB; this prevents corruption, but the user gets no warning. A hotfix is available from Microsoft Product Support Services to do the same thing for Outlook 98[/i]

http://www.rsbr.de/Software/OASniffer/index_eng.htm
With Outlook Attachment Sniffer you are able to extract all attachments from one of your Outlook folders (with and without subfolders) in one go.
Looks like this is very useful to extract all the attachments (I think over 90% of my 600MB pst are attachments, a lot of AutoCAD drawing and pdf files).

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
You're talking about a local pst file, right? You're not talking about mail file size on the Exchange server, right? As far as pst size, I had this one lady who had a 6GB pst file!!! You just have to tell them to break it up. As far as a tool for automatically warning of file size limit, I don't know of one. I can tell you this though, don't try to back up that pst file to a server on another domain. We had issues with anything over 700MB corrupting when we crossed domains. As far as MS, I think they'll only provide support for pst files as large as 500MB, anything over and you're on your own.

You sure about 6gb? I was under the impression that 2gb was the absolute maximum regardless of system resources outlook could handle? We have to go in periodically and split up the pst to make it more manageable, on older computers users start getting problems as small as 1gb

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

It's absolutely AMAZING to me that Microsoft hasn't addressed this problem,

They have, you have to buy Office 2002 to have PST files >2G.

Why not just setup multiple PST files?

Ah ok, all 2k and xp here.

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: Elemental007
I tell my users to not save their attachments in their PST file. Not only does the PST file corrupt, but it makes outlook even slower than usual. I show them how to create a folder in their profile dir and right click -> save as and delete the attachment if encessary. no one has 2 GB of text files/contacts/etc. If they do, god help them.

Something else we have found to slow down outlook is the windows messenger service in outlook, as much as 2 seconds per email that you open. And I know what you mean about that, but users here have mail from 4 years ago, we tell them not to save attachments, but we frequenly deal with large archives of emails users have kept, some as large as 2gb.