Outlook FAQS

Microsoft Outlook is Personal Information Manager (PIM) provision from Microsoft accessible both as a feature of Microsoft Office suite or as independent utility. Furthermore it can be defined as an offline mail retrieval program thus also called as email client. Mails, Journal, Contacts, Notes, To-do List & Mail sending/receiving are the key features of it which helps you to manage your data more accurately & precisely in your local machine.

Your web mail account like Hotmail, Gmail etc can be synchronized with Outlook in order, to store your mail & other web mail items (contacts, calendar etc.) thus it is also known as "Personal Storage Table". Also the Microsoft Outlook can be either be used with Microsoft SharePoint Server & Microsoft Exchange Server or synchronized with office 365 Clouds & Google Apps User account in order to store the mail items locally.

PST is created when user configure their mails with Outlook. By default location of PST file in your local machine is following path
For XP: C:\Documents and Settings\User Profile\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Archive.pst
For Windows Vista/7/8: C:\Users\User Profile\Updated\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\Archive.pst

OST (Offline Storage Table) is maintained when used with Exchange or Sharepoint servers of Microsoft. By default location of OST file in your local machine is following path:
For XP: C:\Documents and Settings\User Profile\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\archive.ost
For Windows Vista/7/8: C:\Users\User Profile\Updated\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

PST is reference type of Outlook and thus is inaccessible under other email client program. To view PST file the Outlook must install in your machine.

For Viewing Orphaned PST file, first copy the orphaned PST file in your hard drive & Open Outlook. Then Go to File Menu » Outlook Data File…

This will open a browsing window through which you can select the orphaned PST file. Select the PST file you desire to view & Click OK button:

This will show you the PST file in a separate folder:

However there are many third party applications that provide complete view of your PST file. These free PST viewer are available free of cost.

No there is no limit as it can merge unlimited number of PST file. If the size crosses from 19 GB then the PST merge software create another PST file since Outlook can contain PST file of 20 GB maximum size.

Yes, this is Possible to join a large number of PST file & create a single PST with PST Merge Software. The different modes of combining PST help in either creating new PST folder for merged PST, or creating a single PST file or only contacts merging across PST file. Furthermore the duplicate PST file & deleted items across PST can also be removed by the PST Merge filters module.

Yes this is possible if the password is known to the user otherwise it will give the error message: "File Access is denied. You do not have the permissions to access the file."

Occurrence:
This error occurs when you attempt to Open Outlook. Where xyz.pst can be any PST file that you loaded

Either your Outlook PST deleted from machine or become corrupted due to virus attack.

Solution:
If Outlook PST found corrupted then you need some Outlook recovery tool, or program to repair corrupt PST file.

Occurrence:
This error occurs when you try to open corrupt PST file from Outlook.
Where xyz.pst can be any PST file name to be loaded

Error Cause:
PST is a file type of Outlook, which form a data structure to contain email, contacts, calendar, notes & so forth. When the email stores across the PST file it contain two parts i.e. Body & Header. Outlook PST files header stores all the Meta data of Outlook PST like Message Id, File Size, IP Address, encoding supported etc.
When you encounter Outlook PST file gets corrupt, it is actually the header information of PST which gets corrupted & unrecognized by Outlook. Microsoft Outlook fetches & reads PST file through the header only. And if Outlook PST headers get corrupt, Outlook flags entire PST as corrupt resulting error "The file xyz.pst is not a personal folders file".

Solution:
Outlook experts or developers who are familiar with its API can repair corrupt Outlook PST headers manually by analyzing it in Hex format. But novice user needs third party software. Here we recommend Outlook recovery software to fix the PST header corruption.

Occurrence:
You may receive this error when you try to start Outlook or to run PST file where xxxx.pst is name of PST file Outlook is trying to load.

Error Cause:
When index of PST file gets corrupt Outlook shows aforementioned error message. To resolve the issue either use scanpst.exe (Outlook default Inbox repair tool)or avail professional Outlook data file recovery service.

Occurrence:
After Send/Receive function Outlook report this error & it is specifically related with receive function of send and receive (i.e. after completion of downloading process by Outlook)

Why "File xxxx.pst could not be accessed. Data error. Cyclic redundancy check." or "Data error (cyclic redundancy check)" error encounters?
As in this case you are unable to view the downloaded email since CRC fails which means the Outlook encountered some problem while communication with Mail server. In other words due to improper connectivity between Outlook & Mail Server, Outlook become unable to read the loaded folder. Just after the mentioned error when you click your Deleted Items folder, you will get error message as: Error 0x80040116

Solution:
The mentioned error denotes that Outlook PST gets corrupt. It is recommended to avail any experts recommended Outlook PST recovery services.

The steps to configure Gmail web account with Outlook 2007 to 2010:
Start Outlook; From "Tools" menu choose "Account Setting" choosing "New" under "E-mail" tab.


A pop-up window appears select to "Add a new e-mail account", click "Next" choosing "Microsoft Exchange, POP3, IMAP or HTTP" option if asked.


Mark "Manually configure server settings or additional server types" from the bottom of pop-up appeared to configure Outlook with Gmail. Click "Next"


Choose "Internet E-mail" from choose Email Services dialog. Click "Next" to continue.


Select (POP3 or IMAP) as suited on the Server Type step. Click on "Next" For Gmail IMAP is nothing different because Gmail account maintains copy of all emails anyway.


Specify Gmail User name and Password to continue further with next screen. Also specify Gmail server Addresses as
POP Gmail Servers for MS Outlook
Incoming mail Server: pop.gmail.com
Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.gmail.com
IMAP Gmail Server for MS Outlook
Incoming Mail Server: imap.gmail.com
Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.gmail.com


Click "More Settings" button at bottom right to specify SMTP/POP3 server port values. If you use Gmail as a POP Outlook account:
– On the "Incoming server (POP3)" field, enter 995 and mark the box "This server requires an encrypted connection (SSL)";
– On the "Outgoing server (SMTP)" field, enter 465 and mark the box "This server requires an encrypted connection (SSL)".

If you use Gmail as an IMAP Outlook account:
– On the "Incoming server (IMAP)" field, enter 993 and mark the box "This server requires an encrypted connection (SSL)";
– On the "Outgoing server (SMTP)" field, enter 587 and mark the box "This server requires an encrypted connection (TLS)".
Click "OK" and then "Next" and you are done. Optionally you can "Test Account Settings" for verifying proper Send/receive occurring or not.