Outlook 2002 / 2003 PST File Format?

[Guest]

Hi,


Been reading here about 2002 non-unicode format and 2003 unicode format.

What exactly is the difference in the formats? What are the advantages
and disadvantages?

Thanks

Lee

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

The Unicode ones have no size limitations -either in number of messages per
folder or total file size. Outlook 2002 and older psts are limited to approx
1.87 GB and up to 64,000 items per folder.

Of course, the reason for Unicode is not to increase file size but to
support other character sets - so messages sent in other character sets (ie,
Russian or Arabic) are readable, assuming you can read those languages.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Need Help with Common Tasks? http://www.outlook-tips.net/beginner/



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[Roady [MVP]]

Main userside advantage is that you can store more than 2GB of Outlook data
in it. By default you can store up to 20GB of data in a single file now but
this can be extended to a virtual unlimmited size.

The main userside disadvantage is that you cannot open UNICODE formatted
pst-files in previous versions of Outlook.

The rest is a lot of technical stuff ;-)

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-FREE tool; QuickMail. Create new Outlook items anywhere from within Windows
-Properly back-up and restore your Outlook data

-----
Hi,


Been reading here about 2002 non-unicode format and 2003 unicode format.

What exactly is the difference in the formats? What are the advantages
and disadvantages?

Thanks

Lee

 

[Guest]

Main userside advantage is that you can store more than 2GB of Outlook data
in it. By default you can store up to 20GB of data in a single file now but
this can be extended to a virtual unlimmited size.

The main userside disadvantage is that you cannot open UNICODE formatted
pst-files in previous versions of Outlook.

The rest is a lot of technical stuff ;-)

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

When I installed OL2003 I'm not sure if I created a new 2003 Unicode PST
- is there a way to tell what version it is?

Thanks

Lee

 

[Roady [MVP]]

File-> Data File Management-> select the pst-> Settings... If format doesn't
say 97-2002 it is 2003.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-FREE tool; QuickMail. Create new Outlook items anywhere from within Windows
-Properly back-up and restore your Outlook data

-----

Main userside advantage is that you can store more than 2GB of Outlook
data
in it. By default you can store up to 20GB of data in a single file now
but
this can be extended to a virtual unlimmited size.

The main userside disadvantage is that you cannot open UNICODE formatted
pst-files in previous versions of Outlook.

The rest is a lot of technical stuff ;-)

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

When I installed OL2003 I'm not sure if I created a new 2003 Unicode PST
- is there a way to tell what version it is?

Thanks

Lee

 

[Guest]

File-> Data File Management-> select the pst-> Settings... If format doesn't
say 97-2002 it is 2003.

It says "Personal Folders File (97-2002)" so it's the old version then.

So - is it worth creating a new PST and dragging the contents of the old
PST to the new one?

Cheers

Lee

 

[Roady [MVP]]

If you have a big pst-file already and you like to have everything in a
single file instead of several archive files it is worth doing so. If you
are in a multinational environment and you need UNICODE character support it
is especially worth doing so.

Less of an issue but worth mentioning is that there are some (logical)
issues when running a mixed UNICODE/ANSI file format. For instance archiving
from an ANSI to a UNICODE pst-file can have some issues. So if you swap;
swap all your active pst-files.

Same goes for that most add-ins are nowadays tested with Outlook 2003 and
UNICODE formatted pst-files.

So ANSI support is basically only there for backwards compatibility ;-)

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-FREE tool; QuickMail. Create new Outlook items anywhere from within Windows
-Properly back-up and restore your Outlook data

-----

File-> Data File Management-> select the pst-> Settings... If format
doesn't
say 97-2002 it is 2003.

It says "Personal Folders File (97-2002)" so it's the old version then.

So - is it worth creating a new PST and dragging the contents of the old
PST to the new one?

Cheers

Lee