Common Outlook pst problems

Common Outlook .pst problems

We would like to point out some of the unavoidable questions or issues that most of the Microsoft Outlook users put across to newsgroups of Microsoft or various support forums about Outlook personal storage files i.e. (.pst).

Standalone Outlook application which is not working under C/W (Corporate or Workgroup mode) mode stores all its data inside a .pst file. It is quite easy to locate a .pst file using Outlook, all you have to do is right-click the Outlook Today folder and choose Properties. In the properties dialog box, click the “Advanced” button to know the file name and disk storage path of your .pst file.

This helps you to take the backup of your .pst file, you just need to close Outlook and browse the path you just checked and then create a copy of your .pst file. In case if you have moved the file from its original path Outlook would not be able to access the .pst file. However, you can again redirect Outlook to the new path in the same fashion you checked the path. You can use the option “Mail” in Windows Control Panel as well.

Default Store path for Outlook in Windows 2000 / XP

%drive%:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

Default Store path for Outlook in Windows Vista

%drive%:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

Most common Outlook problems

1. Corruption caused due to 2 GB .pst file size limit.
2. Corruption of .pst file when used over network.
3. Case of accidentally deleted messages, contacts and notes.
4. Corruption inside the .pst file header.
5. Corruption caused due to compacting of the .pst file.

In our coming posts we would be covering all the above mentioned problems in detail.