Microsoft 365 Outlook Client Issues
This Dell desktop computer came in with issues after a partially successful Microsoft Office 365 upgrade. The client was trying to upgrade to Outlook 365 because they needed a more up-to-date Office version for compatibility with Act! CRM. This is quite an old computer – before Windows 10 it was running Windows 7 and it’s only a 2nd Gen Intel CPU. Basically the whole computer desperately needs replacing. Before the botched upgrade, originally it was running Outlook 2010.
Here Lurks A Monstrosity Huge Outlook Data File
Previously I was trying to help the customer via remote support sessions. After the upgrade of MS Office / Outlook it was discovered that the main data file or PST file for Outlook could not be opened in the new version. It was showing in the folder list on the side but it would give error messages saying it was ‘out of resources’ if you tried to click on anything in that folder list. I took a look at all the Outlook PST and OST files on the computer (there were a few) and there it was… a monster that was born sometime in 2010; a SEVENTY GIGABYTE Outlook data file!!
I tried a few fixes but nothing worked so the next step was to run the Outlook Inbox Repair Tool or ScanPST which I did from the Office 365 root folder.
One of the problems I was having with the Outlook Inbox Repair Tool was that it needed space to make a backup of the file before repairing it but there was only 50GB of free space on the SSD. Hardly enough for this 70GB monstrosity!
In the end she had to plug a USB drive into the computer so the next time I remoted in to try the Outlook Inbox Repair Tool I was going to use the USB drive to back up the PST file before repair. This would need to run overnight because the Outlook file was so large. Unfortunately after eight hours it gave up and errored out saying there was an ‘unknown error’ and couldn’t continue.
Weekend & Overnight Computer Repair
Since this is a business computer and they use it Monday to Friday I was not able to have it in the workshop for any length of time until the weekend. It was dropped off to me late Friday and I put it on the bench at 8 o’clock on Saturday morning. The first thing I did was to upgrade the PC by cloning the 500GB SSD to a 2TB one because of the lack of space issues.
Everything was cloned from the old drive to the new one; Windows 10, all the programs and data. I then made a copy of the 70 GB Outlook file and proceeded to run a repair but this time I tried an Outlook Inbox Repair Tool that was from an Outlook 2010 installation. This scan and repair was successful however it took a total of 22 hours to complete!!
On Sunday, after the file was successfully repaired I was finally able to open it in Outlook 365 and I was then able to start doing the laborious task of archiving everything so that I could try to compact the file and make it smaller. I ended up archiving everything to a new PST file that was about 50GB and was left with the main file which was about 19GB. This is her working file and it contains emails and attachments dating back to two years ago. If she needs to find anything which was received earlier than 2022, she will have to open the archive file in Outlook. In Outlook just go to File > Open & Export > Open Outlook Data file and browse to the file and open it. Once you’ve opened it and got the files that you need or emails that you need or you’ve found the information you’re looking for you can then right-click on the file in the left hand column where the list of folders are and you can choose ‘Close NameOfYourDataFile‘.
No Rest For The Wicked
So it is now Sunday afternoon and the idea is that I will get this computer back together and running so that she can take it away early for work tomorrow morning and during the week I will prepare a new computer to migrate everything over to next weekend.
