Does archiving make a Outlook 2000 faster?

[cmp301]

I have been reading comments that a large pst file (presumably outlook.pst)
is the reason Outlook can be slow at times. My problem is Outlook take a long
time opening, closing and sometimes if I'm moving an email from one folder to
another.

So I tried archiving. Shouldn't this reduce the size of your Outlook.pst
file? Wierd thing is I archived 170 KB of sent mail but the size out
outlook.pst is the same. Did I do something wrong? No measurable improvement
in operating speed.

I have Outlook 2000 on Windows XP.

 

[Vince Averello [MVP-Outlook]]

After archiving you might need to compact the PST file to remove the excess
white space. The process is described here:
Corporate Mode:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q179/8/68.asp

IMO [Internet Mail Only] Mode:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q179/8/70.asp

There are times when you may have to compact multiple times to achieve
results (three seems to be the magic number for many users).

Even though the articles are about OL98 they should still be applicable.