Restored pst larger than original

[Rick216]

My new "highly-respected," paid antivirus program rudely added 5
highly-unwanted lines of text, and a website link, to the bottom of each of
the 13,000 emails in my Outlook 2003 Inbox -- puportedly to confirm that each
message had been certified virus-free (aka advertising).

To get most of my emails back into their unviolated state, I imported
messages from a three-week old pst file backup into my Inbox, instructing
Outlook to keep the oldest message wherever there was a duplicate.

Worked fine, but even after compacting the resulting pst has grown from
about 300mb to 350mb. There are no duplicates or extra files, so I don't
understand why the reconstructed version is larger. Further compacting
doesn't reduce the filesize any further.

Any ideas what could cause the pst to grow like this even though the Inbox
content looks the same as before (other than the fact that the unwanted
imprints are mostly gone)? And any ideas on how I might ditch the extra 50mb
without deleting anything? Thanks.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

That is normal behavior by doing an import and delete procedure. Additional
space was needed to first add and then remove the items. This created larger
index tables and of course space for the additional items was added too. The
compacting procedure will remove some but not of the white space from the
Outlook database (pst-file) as it needs white space to function properly as
well. In addition, your virus scanner could have added properties to the
database as well to indicate what has been scanned and what hasn't been
scanned yet.

You could take the other approach as well; restore your backup of the
pst-file from before your virus scanner started interfering. Then reconnect
(don't import!) your current pst-file again via File-> Open-> Outlook Data
File... and copy the missing items to the restored pst-file.

 

[Rick216]

Thanks for the quick reply and explanation of why this is normal behavior
(although I am a bit surprised by the magnitude of the increase).

The original size I cited of 300mb was from after the antivirus had already
scanned all emails, so wouldn't any properties added by the antivirus have
already occurred? BTW, I disabled the antivirus' email scanning and
integration into Outlook during the pst reconstruct.

Are you suggesting that the copy method might have produced a smaller
reconstructed and compacted pst, or are you just citing it as an alternate --
and perhaps simpler -- approach?

I actually did try a copy operation first, but in a less-efficient way: I
left the current pst in place as the Inbox and connected the backup. Then I
was going to delete most of the Inbox emails and paste in pre-imprint
versions copied from the backup. However, while there was no issue with
copying, for some reason Paste was greyed out when I tried to complete the
process. I wonder if Paste would have been available had I done this in the
more sensible fashion you suggested?

It's kind of ironic -- I liked the fact that this new antivirus program is
50mb smaller than my last one...but now it has caused me to add 50mb in
Outllook instead!

Thanks again.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Your method would still leave traces as you added data first which you later
removed again. If you are going to delete all items of your current pst-file
now and would use Compact Now over and over again, it will still never reach
the size of a new pst-file. The method I proposed is cleaner.

Don't worry too much about this 50MB. Most of this space will be reused
anyway. If you were to send yourself a 5MB file right now, it's not like
your pst-file will grow 5MB directly as well.

Just to be certain; you did empty your Deleted Items folder in the process,
right? ;-)

 

[john]

My new "highly-respected," paid antivirus program rudely added 5
highly-unwanted lines of text, and a website link, to the bottom of each
of
the 13,000 emails in my Outlook 2003 Inbox -- puportedly to confirm that
each
message had been certified virus-free (aka advertising).

To get most of my emails back into their unviolated state, I imported
messages from a three-week old pst file backup into my Inbox, instructing
Outlook to keep the oldest message wherever there was a duplicate.

Worked fine, but even after compacting the resulting pst has grown from
about 300mb to 350mb. There are no duplicates or extra files, so I don't
understand why the reconstructed version is larger. Further compacting
doesn't reduce the filesize any further.

Any ideas what could cause the pst to grow like this even though the Inbox
content looks the same as before (other than the fact that the unwanted
imprints are mostly gone)? And any ideas on how I might ditch the extra
50mb
without deleting anything? Thanks.


__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
signature database 3974 (20090330) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

You mean like this <see above>?
You can switch these "tags" off.
Go to Setup > Advanced Setup > Email Client Protection.
Here you'll see options to turn of this "feature" for incoming and outgoing
emails.



__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 3974 (20090330) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

My new "highly-respected," paid antivirus program rudely added 5
highly-unwanted lines of text, and a website link, to the bottom of each of
the 13,000 emails in my Outlook 2003 Inbox -- puportedly to confirm that
each
message had been certified virus-free (aka advertising).

While Roady addressed the mail question, this bothers me. The only time that
any AV program accesses messages is when they arrive and when the leave. No
AV program I know will go through an existing PST and add the certification to
messages received prior to the point you began certifying the incoming
messages. If I were to encounter one that did, I'd scrap it in a New York
minute, but I just don't see how that behavior is possible.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

It's very common for virus scanners to have a "scan now" feature which scans
the current message store just like you can scan any hard disk on demand.
Usually they offer/force you to do a scan right after you install their
product and when it integrates with Outlook... your messages are scr*wed as
well.

I really wished virus scanner makers would stop integrating their product
with Outlook or simply any needless integration and other features that do
the computer more hard than good and limit the end-user in their day-to-day
productivity.

 

[Rick216]

Yes, that's the imprint I refer to. And while nosing through the advanced
settings I quickly discovered the imprint-disable setting, not realizing at
the time that all 13,000 of the emails in my Inbox had already been
irreversibly imprinted.

I never would have imagined a *paid* version of a good-reputation AV like
this would add this advertising, especially as the default setting -- doubly
annoying given that they urge you to leave the defaults in place for best
protection, and don't offer any imprint warning or opt-out during the install.

 

[Rick216]

Yes, I checked Deleted Items

Although, I wonder if there might be something hidden lurking, because after
the pst reconstruction Outlook kept trying -- and failing -- to send two
emails, even though the Outbox was empty. After doing some online research I
found out that these were hidden read receipts, and how to get rid of them.
But what's odd is the culprit read receipts I found would have been from a
backup of an entirely different pst -- one I had connected briefly just to
see if I could copy and paste items from one Inbox to another (a successful
single-email trial, BTW...despite my aforementioned inability to paste during
my first "real" reconstruction attempt).

 

[Rick216]

It actually goes beyond a forced/offered on-demand scan during setup. The
NOD32 Email Protection Advanced Settings menu John referred to defaults to
"Repeat scan after update -- Toggles rescanning after a virus signature
database update." So I believe this means it rescans the whole Inbox after
every virus-database update. I say "I believe" because I have turned off
that feature.