Calendar store location with Outlook Connector

[Bryan]

I'm using Windows Live Hotmail & Outlook 2007 with the Office Outlook
Connector. I have my contacts syncronized and can check email.. I understand
it is an additional subscription service to sync my calendar and I am
considering that.

My question is about where my calendar items are being stored..

For now with the outlook connector installed, I click on my calendar in
Outlook and there it is.. I can add items to it and everything works.. Now
I check Data File Management and can't figure out where my calendar data is
stored. There is nothing under either "Internet Calendars" or "Published
Calendars" and under "Data Files" there is my Live Mail account listed but
the filename says "Unavailable".

Where are my Calendar items being stored? I need to know this so I can make
sure they get backed up.

Bryan

 

[Diane Poremsky]

You current items in outlook are in the default mail folder. If the only
message store is the connector store, they are stored in that pst but not
synced with your live hotmail calendar online. The internet and published
calendar tabs are for subscribed calendars - such as those from
http://www.icalshare.com/.

If you subscribe to the live calendar it will be stored locally in the same
set of folders with your live (hotmail) email and the online calendar will
be synced with the offline one.

 

[Bryan]

I've got two additional IMAP accounts loaded in Outlook along with the Live
Hotmail account. Neither IMAP account has a calendar folder. When I go to
the Calendar tab in Outlook, there is only one calendar available. I right
click it and choose properties and it shows my Live Hotmail ID.

--In "Data File Management" under Data Files
I can see the pst files for the two IMAP Accounts.
The Live Hotmail account says "unavailable" under the filename column.

--In Vista C:\Users\User\AppData\Loca\Microsoft\Outlook
I can see the two pst files for the IMAP accounts.
There is an Archive.pst
There is an Outlook.pst (but it's only 265K which isn't big enough to hold
my hotmail messages or calendar items)
There is an "Outlook.nst" that's 31MB though.

So where are the calendar items stored. Could it be the nst file? Can
those files be loaded with File/Open ?

Thanks!

 

[Diane Poremsky]

IMAP acct do not support calendars so you will not have a calendar there.
(You could, but appointments would end up looking like messages).

If, in tools, accounts, data files the Hotmail/Live file is marked as the
default message store, that is where the calendar is. It will work fine
"offline" on your computer but won't sync to the hotmail calendar unless you
pay for the access. If you only had the imap accts, you'd use the
outlook.pst as the default message store and the calendar would be there.

That message store should be an *.ost. Did you upgrade from an older
version of Outlook that had a very old connector account? They no longer use
*.nst file extension but upgrades will keep the old file.

 

[Bryan]

The Live Hotmail account is the default. This is a brand new computer and
the MS Office Ultimate installation is a new retail copy that was installed
fresh. I removed the Office 2007 trial that came with the PC before
installing it. It has never had a prior version of Office installed.
Apparently they're still using NST files. I've never heard of them before.
The file is being used and opened every time I open Outlook.

So if I understand your response, my calendar items are stored online, even
though they don't sync with the Live Hotmail Calendar (show up there when I
go to the web interface)..

That's cool.. However it still leaves me with the question of how do I
backup my calendar? I REALLY need to know this because I've got alot of
stuff in it that I can't afford to lose.

I just tested creating a calendar item with a 4MB attachment. I observed
the NST file growing instantly by 4MB. I tried it again choosing a different
4MB file, and again the NST grew instantly by 4MB.. Now in the tradition of
Microsoft Outlook files, when you remove the items that contain the
attachmetns from the Calendar, the NST files do NOT reduce in size.
Historically one would have to "compact" the file to recover that space.

So two questions now:

1) How do I backup my calendar as a non-calendar-subscribing
Live-Hotmail-Plus customer ( I do pay for the 10GB plan)?

2) How do I "compact" this NST file ... or rather manage the growth of this
file over time?

Thanks
Bryan

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Interesting. They used to use NST file type (and msnpst before that) - about
18 months ago connector accts starting using the OST extension. I'll have
to check it out this afternoon.

Under your current set up you have two calendars - the one in Outlook and
the one in Hotmail/Live (assuming you are using the hotmail one). The normal
method of backing up a calendar is to copy the PST, but the NST file may not
open if not associated with an acct. You can test this - close Outlook, copy
the NST to your My Documents folder and rename it 'backup'. Open outlook and
add the backup using File, open, outlook data file. If it opens, use Ctrl+6
to switch to the folder list and browse the file. If this works, you just
need to backup the NST. If it fails, you'll need to export the calendar or
by copy the calendar to a new pst (added using File, New, Outlook data
file).

if you get a paid acct, the calendars will be synced and you won't need to
backup the outlook calendar as its identical to the one online - although
I'd still back it up locally if you use a pda. They've been known to wipe
out calendars.

Outlook will compact the folder when it hits 20% "white space".

 

[Bryan]

The NST file is there and there are no OST files at all anywhere that I can
find. I've searched the entire computer for *.ost.

Yes I have two calendars listed. One is stored in a PST file that I
maintain for one of my IMAP accounts. I store only Contacts in it and there
are no Calendar items in it at all. I had a 2nd PST that I used as my
primary calendar and contacts store prior to signing up for Live Hotmail and
installing Outlook 2007 and the Outlook Connector (ver 12.0.4518.1063). I
noticed that the Live account had setup a calendar and that I could put items
on it. I copied all my contacts to my Live account, and copied all my
Calendar items to the Live Calendar, and then closed the 2nd PST file.
Restarted Outlook and all my contacts and calendar items are still there in
the Live account (Contacts & Calendar).

So.. it's storing them somewhere.

An update to the NST file: I had earlier reported that the space wasn't
recovered once I removed the two 4MB attachments. A few mins after my last
post, the space had been recovered - 8MB total.. So it appears that Outlook
or "The Connector" is storing my calendar items in this OUTLOOK.NST file.

I'll have to test the opening of it from File/Open.

"They've been known to wipe out calendars" .. THAT's SCARY!!

Upgrading to a paid account - I'm still very confused as to what I get with
the paid offerings. From what it appears, the only two options are Office
Live Essentials, & MSN.. It also appears that if I sign up for MSN that I am
required to create a new account. I don't want that. In fact, there is
nothing about MSN that I find of any value at all EXCEPT the calendar sync.
I would prefer to just pay for the ability to sync my calendar for the
account I already have. However $9.95/ month for that feature is way too
expensive.


I'm considering usiing an alternate service until MS can make this reliable
enough.. or offer a reasonably priced service. I can't afford my calendar to
be wiped out and $10/mo is just not practical.

I'll test the NST File Open and report back.

I would definately like to get an answer on the offical position of how
users are supposed to back up their calendar items when using Live Hotmail
though.. Especially if periodically wiping them out is a standard practice.
Does that happen with contacts too?

Thanks for all your help,
Bryan

=================================================

 

[Bryan]

UPDATE:

Attempting to open a NST file from Outlook File/Open fails. Renaming the
suffix to PST or OST didn't work either.

I was able to create a "backup.pst" file from the File/New menu and then
copy both the contacts and calendar items to it. Everything seems to have
copied so this works albeit a really sloppy, and completely undocumented
backup implementation for non calendar subscribers. In fact, I suspect that
MS is completely unaware of this problem altogether. I'd like to see a tool
created for automated backup of contacts and calendar items to my local PC.
Maybe modify the PFBackup tool to accomodate this.

I think since the contact sync is now free with all Live/Hotmail accounts
that PLUS subscribers (such as myself) should be able to sync the calendar.
I'm considering cancelling the PLUS Subscription because I don't need 10GB of
storage or 20MB attachments. I'd even pay more than $19.95 per year if it
included Calendar Sync but not $120 a year (for MSN). The product
offerings are currently all out-of-whack from the reality of what users want
and need in my opinion.

Another option is the upcoming Office Live Workspace which states that you
can sync contacts and calendar for free. I'm looking forward to testing
that.

Bryan