The Exchange Team first indicated it was coming back in July 2011. We’ve been anxiously awaiting it ever since, and it has finally arrived. Microsoft’s free PST Capture Tool is available for download now.

This tool is designed to hunt down PSTs on your network and provide administrators with a management console which will enable them to either migrate the content to Exchange 2010 on premise, or to Office 365. It uses a client-server approach, requiring a management console to be installed on a server, and agents to be deployed to all systems which you want to scan for PSTs. Continue reading Rejoice, for the PST Capture Tool Has Been Launched!

There was a time when using PST files were thought to be the solution to file storage problems. Getting emails out of the user’s mailbox and onto a shared repository not only freed up email inboxes from increasing file sizes, but also gave admins a central location in which all emails could be backed up and archived.

Add to these benefits the fact that PST files could be separated so emails related to a project, client, subject, etc could be stored and archived separately, and many would think that this solution was all that an IT department would need to manage their archiving and storage needs.

Of course PST files aren’t a panacea; they have many problems associated with them. Continue reading Two Big Problems With PST Files

There have been several articles posted on TheEmailAdmin lately regarding mailbox size (including at least one of those written by myself). There appear to be strong and valid arguments on both sides of the issue; large mailboxes help to support business operations, avoid the need for PSTs, and keep users happy. Smaller mailboxes conserve space, are much quicker to restore in the event of a disaster, and can reduce the likelihood that something from years ago might come back to haunt you. Email archiving solutions are a good compromise, offering users the ability to keep important (to them) emails around forever, while keeping inboxes small.

Continue reading The Microsoft Large Mailbox Vision

Is your email inbox literally bursting at the seams every time you open it? If it is, then don’t you think that perhaps it’s time to get a little more organized? Having an overflowing email inbox is the main cause of your email client slowing down, and it also means you waste time not being able to find crucial emails in a hurry.

I understand it might seem like a daunting task to get yourself organized, but it’s really not so difficult when you know how. The first step on the road towards organization is cleaning up your inbox, followed by some intelligent archiving of your emails. In this post I’m going to outline my simple Microsoft Outlook system for keeping my emails tidy, and I’ll also throw in some tips on how you can archive your older emails too. And even if you use another email client instead of Outlook, you can probably apply these tips anyway.

The most important tool that Outlook has is the AutoArchive feature. It allows you to do all kinds of things, including directing where archived data should go and specifying how old items need to be before they are archived.

Continue reading 7 Tips For Managing Outlook Email Archives

The Outlook Personal Folders file (PST) had its day.  It was once the ultimate or perhaps only solution to reducing the cost of storing old emails within the Exchange server database.

Those days are largely gone.  Exchange servers can scale up to much larger database sizes than they could 10 years ago.  Disk and tape storage is cheap, and emails themselves are getting larger and larger.  And enterprise email archiving is efficient, cost effective, and even comes built in to the latest version of Exchange Server.

The benefits of the PST format are now close to nil, while all of the problems remain.  PST files are single-user access only, can’t be indexed or easily searched, are sensitive to corruption when they get larger or are being accessed over networks, and consume more space due to their general inefficiency.

But many organizations have a lot of archived emails still stored in PST files.  Moving to a new Exchange server doesn’t magically solve that problem.  The question is what should you do about all those PST files? Continue reading What to do With Those PST Files

Outlook is used in many corporations by many users and has been for many years. So it is not surprising that problems eventually emerge that are related to file sizes or email file corruptions.

Sometimes when an end user has started Outlook they will report receiving an error code such as 0×80040116. Usually the error message will read, “Outlook.pst can not be accessed – 0×80040116”. If this error message is received then be aware that this could result in a loss of all emails and contacts that have been saved in Outlook. So it is a serious error code message and one that will require immediate attention.

This is one of the reasons why I always encourage email archiving so as to reduce the use of Personal Storage Folder (.pst) files which can be difficult to use. Having a good email archiving solution can also help when data and other critical email files have become corrupted or accidentally damaged and are no longer accessible.

There are other reasons why the error code 0×80040116 can be received. It is also possible that the error code has been generated in response to a file size limitation having been reached. Usually this will occur if a 2GB maximum file size had been encroached while running Outlook 2000 or earlier versions. If this is the case then an administrator should try running a couple of different tools to correct the problem. Some of these tools include: ScanDisk, PST2GB and ScanPST. These tools can be used to reduce the size of the “pst” file below the 2GB limit.

Continue reading Troubleshooting the 0×80040116 Error Code

PST (Personal Storage Tables) can be a nuisance and a cause of some difficulties. There are plenty of how-to’s out there on how to manage them, tweak them, and manipulate them, but the best strategy of all is to avoid them altogether.

The PST files can be stored either on the Exchange server or locally. The immediate advantage of local storage of the PST files is that it provides an easy and readily accessible location for old emails. But although a great many email environments are set up for local storage of PST files, it goes without saying that the local storage option is a bad idea that offers very little in the way of protection against disaster, loss, or attack.

However, with more companies falling under the purview of one or more compliance-related legislative mandates, usage of PST files must be revisited. If there is a retention requirement that calls for storing emails for a certain period of time, it’s pretty easy to get around that requirement. Electronic discovery may also be a problem if PST files are used and stored locally, even temporarily.

Continue reading Reduce dependency on PST files