View pst folders while offline

[chrisk]

I am looking for an easy way to let users see their .pst files when they are
offline.

We recently upgraded from Office XP to 2007 on Windows XP pro. During this
we created new local .pst files in Unicode and imported the emails from the
old local pst files and then deleted the old.

In Outlook XP, when laptop users were out of the office, and not connected
to the network, they could run outlook and view their .pst files by clicking
'work offline' when they received the message that the exchange server was
unavailable.

Once we went to 2007, and users are out of the office, they run outlook and
still get the exchange server unavailable message, but when they click work
offline they get an error message
'cannot start Microsoft outlook. cannot open the outlook window. the set
of folders cannot be opened. the information store could not be opened.'

When they click OK, it closes and the users cannot get to outlook at all.

I am aware of 'Use Cached Exchange Mode' which then creates a local .ost and
allows users to see not only their .pst's but their entire inbox as well.
The problem with this is that when users are outside of the office they
connect through VPN so their PC's are not a node on the network and they
instead use WTS to work. So in theory, they could be looking at 2 different
inboxes when they are VPNing in (one local cached version, and one current
version on WTS). I don't think this is the best solution for us right now.

I am looking for an easy way to let users see their pst files when they are
offline.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

I guess the first question is: If these folks have Exchange mailboxes, then what's in the .pst files that they need to see?

That said, one solution would be to have a different mail profile for viewing the .pst file. Beyond that, other solutions would probably depend on how you have the Exchange account and mail profile configured -- Exchange connection mode, default store, etc.

 

[chrisk]

The pst files have all of their old emails in it. We regulate the size of
users inboxes so their solution is to move items to the pst. They also know
if they are out of the office and need access to an email that this is (was)
the place to put it.

If we were to create a new profile, is there a way to have outlook
automatically chose which profile to use based on weather or not it can talk
to the exchange (2003) server. We are trying to make this "work how it used
to".

What other information would you need about how we are connecting to
exchange and profiles to help me out?

Thank you,
Chris

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

No, profile choice can't be automatic in that way.

Have you tried setting up Outlook the same way as in Outlook 2002 -- without Cached Exchange mode but with an offline folders .ost file?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming:
Jumpstart for Power Users and Administrators
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54

 

[chrisk]

No I have not tried that. How would I go about that?

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Look in same place as you'd change any Exchange settings -- in Control Panel | Mail. You should see the same offline folders option that OL2002 has. Just don't check the options for Cached Exchange mode.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming:
Jumpstart for Power Users and Administrators
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54

 

[chrisk]

Would it make sense that the folder MUST be in documents and
settings\%username%\application data\microsoft\outlook for this to work