PST Crash

We were called out today by a client who has 2 machines where no emails were working..#

you might think - "what's the point!".

We all know there is a 2GB limit in outlook for PST datebase.

We use Exchange where no PST is stored but a Mailbox is used my mailbox is 5gb and stretches for 8 years. (yes I have records of all my mail).

anyway back to the 2GB problem:

Machine 1 had outlook working in safe mode and nothing happening, so we stopped outlook and I tried to check the machine, no errors, Luckily when you install office a tool called scanpst.exe and scanost.exe

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287497

both these help repair the relevant database and recover emails.

after 2 hours of scanpst running 71 bad messages were fix and about 200 lost messages recovered. - the store was only at 1GB, so no need to trim the database.

after a reboot, success it works.

machine 2:

this was a challenge !! ran the scanpst tool, and and repaired - nearly took 3 hours, the database turned out to be 1.98GB, I got a tool called pst2gb.exe

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=296088

by running this tool, it allows you to choose how much to cut off, here I chose 250Mb (it only cuts of the oldest mail)

Once this was done i had to run the ScanPST.exe tool again, this took about 3 hours again, outlook started to work.


SUCCESS..


DID you know Outlook 2003/2007 have different PST file sizes.. (not announced publicly by MS)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830336

OMG.. and look

here is how to get up to 20GB per PST..

For Outlook 2003 add this regkey

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\PST

The user preference location for the registry entries is located in the following path in Registry Editor:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\PST

change these keys:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. In the left pane, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
4. Expand Software, and then expand Policies.
5. Expand Microsoft, and then expand Office.
6. Expand 11.0 for Outlook 2003 and 12.0 for Outlook 2007, and then expand Outlook.
7. Click PST, and then right-click MaxFileSize in the right pane.
8. Click Modify, and then type the value in the Value data box.
9. Click OK.
10. Right-click WarnFileSize, and repeat steps 8 through 9.
11. Right-click MaxLargeFileSize, and repeat steps 8 through 9.
12. Right-click WarnLargeFileSize, and repeat steps 8 through 9.

Add the values you need to 7,10,11 and 12.

if these keys don't exist then make them using the Reg_Dword

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832925/

Hope that helps.

I think if you use PST, create a reg fragment with the keys and deploy it by double clicking it, so its the same on all the machines.