Upgrade from Outlook 2002 to Outlook 2003 - 2GB PST Limit?

[ame540]

Hi.

I have 3 users consistently hovering around the 2GB limit in their PST files (even with constant archiving) using Outlook XP, and 2002. If i upgrade these users to Outlook 2003, will they be able to hold more than 2GB in their PST files?

I found this article, that is confusing to me, but states the following:
(

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/40961/40961.html)

" The corresponding set of policies listed in Group Policy Editor (GPE) under User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Office Outlook 2003\Miscellaneous\PST Settings goes one step further than the ORK tools and provides a way to limit the growth of both old and new .pst files without totally restricting their use. A bit inconsistently, the policies use the term "Large PST" for the Unicode format and "Legacy PST" for the older ANSI format, but for each .pst format, you can set an absolute maximum size and a separate "Size to disable adding new content." The default maximum size for a Unicode .pst file is about 20GB."

So, can Office 2003 be setup to have PST files that hold more than 2GB of data?

 

[JockMullin]

Hi

Yes, they can hold more than 2 gig, but not if you use the existing PST files, which are in the "legacy" format. Outlook 2003 supports both, but the 2 gig limit still applies to old files, as I understand it.

So what you have to do is set them up with new PST file and then import everything from the old PST file into the new one. Then they will be able to exceed the 2 gig limit. In fact after the import they will likely already be way over that limit, assuming the old PST is compacted.

Plan on doing it over lunch - it takes awhile. Also the old file should be in good shape or the import may fail.

Jock

 

[ame540]

This is excellent! I will have to take care of this one day when the boss is not in the office (and of course be sure to backup that old PST in case i fudge something up!

Thanks for the info jock!