RANDOM MULTIPLE COPIES of emails plugging up my system

[BsOt]

Let me preface this by saying I'm in the PC repair business and have never
encountered this problem before:

A clients PST file has multiple copies of messages he has received in the
past. In each case there seems to be 7 copies of the emails.

Interestingly enough there are not 7 copies of every message from every
sender but this is random throughout his many folders and is occuriing in
messages as recent as last week, and as early as two years ago.

He is using MS Small Business 2003, his .pst file is 5.9GB due to the
duplication of so many messages.

When I looked at MS Office in Add/Remove programs it was showing the gfile
size to be 4,004MB. That's an awfully large MS office install!!

I deleted and reinstalled Office and it is now 359MB, much better.

I tried to to export his PST file using the "do not export duplicates"
command but even the new backup file has all the duplications.

His Outlook still works, albeit slowly! His copy of XP is genuine as are all
software applications on his PC. I have virus scanned and spyware scanned.

Ever come across this scenario?

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Barry

 

[Roady [MVP]]

That's a whole lot of info but not all very relevant.

How many e-mail accounts are there configured?
What account type are they?
Are there any rules configured?

If you have a virus scanner or any other mail scanning tools running that
integrates with Outlook disable this integration and try again.

As for the performance issues; that is to be expected with such a big
pst-file. To optimize performance make sure you have plenty of RAM (at least
512MB but you might want to consider 1GB), low level of fragmentation of the
pst-file and a fast harddrive.

"When I looked at MS Office in Add/Remove programs it was showing the gfile
size to be 4,004MB. That's an awfully large MS office install!! "
That has never been really accurate. A manual check of the Office
installation folder will give you more insights.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----
Let me preface this by saying I'm in the PC repair business and have never
encountered this problem before:

A clients PST file has multiple copies of messages he has received in the
past. In each case there seems to be 7 copies of the emails.

Interestingly enough there are not 7 copies of every message from every
sender but this is random throughout his many folders and is occuriing in
messages as recent as last week, and as early as two years ago.

He is using MS Small Business 2003, his .pst file is 5.9GB due to the
duplication of so many messages.

When I looked at MS Office in Add/Remove programs it was showing the gfile
size to be 4,004MB. That's an awfully large MS office install!!

I deleted and reinstalled Office and it is now 359MB, much better.

I tried to to export his PST file using the "do not export duplicates"
command but even the new backup file has all the duplications.

His Outlook still works, albeit slowly! His copy of XP is genuine as are all
software applications on his PC. I have virus scanned and spyware scanned.

Ever come across this scenario?

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Barry

 

[BsOt]

Sorry for the irrelevant ifo but I wasn't sure what I would be asked.

As for the email accounts there is one POP3, no rules configured and no
connection to the anti-virus. Just a simple straightforward single account
on a Sony laptop. It is running a 1.4 centrino with 512MB RAM. I also copied
the PST file to my PC that is running a 3.0 Pentium and 2GB RAM. Performance
is not my main concern. I just need to know where the heck all the
duplicates came from and how can I get rid of them. Or can I?

Thanks,

Barry