Outlook (2003) on NAS

[Umfriend]

So we're upgrading at home, nothing fancy just way overdue.

Got me a NAS (Sitecom) and a new PC. Wife is migrating from Netscape mail to Outlook (2003). JUst wondering if I can install outlook local and tell it to use the NAS as mailfile. The laptop may run a newer Outlook and I want it to use the same files. Any issues I should expect?

[Fat Tone]

You can put the .pst where ever you like, but I dunno about using different versions of Outlook with it. Would be fun to try.

[Umfriend]

So what is the .pst file? Does it include all the settings for pop3/smtp servers etc? Where is it stored normally and how can I change it?

[MultimediaMan]

This isn't widely known, but it is not a good a idea to put a *.pst (Outlook Mail file) on a network share: You can take down a fileserver this way...

http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/01/21/network-stored-pst-files-don-t-do-it.aspx

[Umfriend]

Thx, I'll not do it then.

Now I'm in the fix that apparantly Outlook 2003 can't import Netscape Messenger mails and adress books, a sheit.

Anyone got experience with Transend (www.transend.com). It pains me to pay $50 for a one off but what am I to do?..

[Umfriend]

Any reason to choose outlook over Thunderbird?

[High_Jumbllama]

Any reason to choose outlook over Thunderbird?

Greater potential for viruses??

So we're upgrading at home, nothing fancy just way overdue.

Got me a NAS (Sitecom) and a new PC. Wife is migrating from Netscape mail to Outlook (2003). JUst wondering if I can install outlook local and tell it to use the NAS as mailfile. The laptop may run a newer Outlook and I want it to use the same files. Any issues I should expect?

Not that it matters because it would kill the network speed as indicated above but the thing to remember is to create the PST file with the earlier version of Outlook. For example, old versions of Outlook (2002 and earlier) could only create and use PST files less than 2GB. I am sure their are other differences as well.

I once accessed my PST file at work over the network, but it was only ~12MB at the time.

[Umfriend]

Thanks all.

So it is Thunderbird. The thing I do _not_ like about it (as I did not with Netscape) is how it places its files, but youcan't have it all, can you? Now I am wondering about about putting those on the NAS but i suspect the same problems and fear corruption if more than one PC is accessing the files at the same time. Guess it's best to leave it locally.

[MultimediaMan]

Please understand, I did, for several years, access my Outlook mail over a network share with no issues.

Cutting through some of the FUD in that article, it isn't just *.PST files which have the problem. It is any file which can be accessed and modified as a non-contiguous object by an external program. Microsoft doesn't want to support this, because SMB does not handle large file sizes well. They may change their tune with SMB2 in Longhorn Server.

The warnings referenced in the article only come up with large fileservers serving several concurrent large *.PST files or other files which can be addressed non-contiguously.

Most home users will never see the issue, but if you do, it could get ugly because the file can become corrupted past recovery.

[Dilitante1]

Thx, I'll not do it then.

Now I'm in the fix that apparantly Outlook 2003 can't import Netscape Messenger mails and adress books, a sheit.

Anyone got experience with Transend (www.transend.com). It pains me to pay $50 for a one off but what am I to do?..

No import directly, BUT, I had to convert a VP here from NS7.x to Outlook 2003. First was copying files from NS7 into NS4.x and making sure the files were seen. Then import into Outlook Express. Then finally into Outlook. So it can be done, just time involved.

[Technoid]

No import directly, BUT, I had to convert a VP here from NS7.x to Outlook 2003. First was copying files from NS7 into NS4.x and making sure the files were seen. Then import into Outlook Express. Then finally into Outlook. So it can be done, just time involved.

This sounds like a frustrating and interesting experience

[Dilitante1]

it was 3 hours but it was rewarding once done