How To: Run MS Office 2003 Outlook On A Secondary / Slave / Remote-Drive
How To: Run MS Office 2003 Outlook On A Secondary/Slave/Remote-Drive
(usb flash drive should work too)
Overview:
The basic idea behind this How-To is to explain how to setup a secondary hard-drive and run your Outlook 2003 from this secondary hard drive.
The reason for doing this is: If you happen to have multiple computers that you use MS Outlook 2003 on (I'm presuming you own licenses for both and all that legal stuff I shouldn't have to talk about) - say: one at home, one at the office, and your laptop - then you have no-doubt discovered it's rather a pain in the ol'behind to keep transfering your .pst file from computer to computer to computer each time you relocate to a different machine. And, of course, let's not forget that you have to keep updating each computers email account settings too - Ugggggh.
The solution I have come up with utilizes a secondary storage unit to allow you to quickly and easily take your Outlook data with you and always keep things updated no matter where you are.
What Started All This:
Ok, the basic idea here resolved around the fact that I went out and purchased two really cool items:
Sabrent 2.5" USB 2.0 HD Enclosure (Retail) - ($9.99)
and
Western Digital Scorpio 40GB ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive (OEM) - ($58.50)
(total price: $68.49)
I bought these two things because for just another $20.76 then what a SanDisk Cruzer Mini 1GB Flash Drive ($47.73) costs, I'm getting 40-gigs rather then 1-gig. Sure, the SanDisk Cruzer Mini is a bit smaller (in fact, the system I've gone with is actually as slim - if not slimmer - then the SanDisk Cruzer Mini is!) in width... but the extra 39-gigs is very sweet, and heck, the system I went with still fits in every pocket of my jacket, pants, and shirts! Thus, I found very little reason to not go with this method... less then twice the money and 39-gigs more diskspace! I simply plug the supplied USB2 plug into any computer running Windows (and linux, not sure about a mac) and Windows will detect it as a new hard-drive and I'm good to go!
As a plus, my laptop (as do most laptops) uses a 2.5 hard-drive and is a lot bigger then 40-gigs, so if I happen to need a bit more diskspace then 40-gigs -- if I'm copying a reaaaaaly large file from one computer to another -- I can just pull out the hard-drive from my laptop and place it into the Sabrent HD Enclosure and as simple as that... I've now got a portable 120-gig portable hard-drive!
Requirements:
Here is what I have, and what I used... your situation may slightly vary.
Microsoft Outlook 2003 (plus a fairly good understanding of how it works)
Secondary Storage Unit (ie: portable hard-drive, flash drive, portable rw-cd/dvd, etc)
30 minutes to setup everything (minor delay in your life if you figure how much time you spend wasting transfering the .pst a bazillion times each month from computer to computer)
Before You Try This:
I'm only going to say this once... I happen to know what I'm doing and you may not... thus, backup ALL your data related to Microsoft first and even along the way! If you don't know how to do that, don't try any of this!! I will not allow anybody to try to lay blame on me for loosing their/your data... as I said, I know what I'm doing and it's worked perfect for me... I'm sharing this for those who also know what they are doing and want to learn a new way to share their .pst file across computers!
That said... read on...
Step #1: Exporting MS Office Settings
First I should mention (again) that I'll be using my little 2.5" portable hard-drive for secondary storage... just encase you neglected to read my above comments thourghly.
Go to:
Start: Programs: Microsoft Office: Microsoft Office Tools
You will hopefully have a tool called "Microsoft Office 2003 Save My Settings Wizard".
If you do, you are going to want to "Export" all of your MS Office settings.
The reason for doing this is because MS Outlook does not store any of your Email accounts (pop3, smtp, etc) inside of the .pst file, and the easiest way I know of to transfer the Email accounts & passwords is via this method.
Step #2: Exporting MS Outlook .pst File
There are two ways to do this... for the average windows user, here is the easy way:
Go download the Outlook 2003 Add-in: Personal Folders Backup. Hopefully you are already using this tool... if you aren't go grab it.
Make sure you close Outlook before you install it, then install it, then open outlook and you'll find a new "Backup..." option under the "File" menu bar.
Perform a backup and save the file to your secondary storage unit. (somewhere logical too... you do not want to have to move it later, that will be a nasty process!)
The second way to get your .pst file is to simply copy it from it's existing location. However, that requires you to unhide folders and hidden directories. If you know how to do that, you'll know how to search the internet to find the actual location of the .pst file 
Step #3: Import Your Existing (.ops) File
If you performed the "Microsoft Office 2003 Save My Settings Wizard" properly it should have promted you to save a new .ops file (New Settings File.OPS) which you should have saved to your secondary storage unit.
Now we need to import that file into ALL of your existing computers where you want your data to be shared.
Simply rerun the "Microsoft Office 2003 Save My Settings Wizard" on each machine and this time perform the "Import" rather then the "Export".
Note: importing this .ops file will overright all existing MS Office settings, rather then simply importing the additional changes... 100% out of my control... yell at MS about this!
Step #4: Importing Your Existing Data File (.pst)
There is where it starts *not* getting fun.
Go to:
File: Data File Management: Add
and select:
Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst)
then press "Ok".
Then locate the new .pst file on your secondary storage unit and again press "Ok".
That will add another Data File to your list. (you should have two or more now)
Click on the new Data File you just added and press the "Close" button.
Step #5: Replacing Your Existing Data File (.pst)
Next go to:
Tools: Email Accounts: View or change existing eemail accounts
Near the bottom of the next screen should be, "Deliver new email to the following location:"
Within the drop-down list select the Personal Folder you just imported. (you might want to go back into the last part of step 4 and rename the imported data file).
Then press "Finish" button.
A security memo should pop-up that says, "You have changed the default delivery location for your e-mail. This will change the location of your Inbox, Calendar, and other folders. These changes will take affect the next time you start Outlook."
Press the "OK" button.
Close down Outlook (File: Exist) and restart it.
Step 6#: Cleaning Up The Old
If you did everything correctly so far, within the "Folder List" plane you should now see two different folders. Your old one and your new one. As we do not want two, we gotta delete the old one, right!
Go to:
File: Data File Management
Click on the old data file and press the "Remove" button.
A security popup will appear, "Are you sure you want to remove this Outlook Data File?"
Press the "Yes" button.
Then press the "Close" button.
Step #7: Review
Ok, that is pretty much the process that you will need to do on every computer you want to be able to share your secondary storage unit .pst file with.
This is perhaps not the prettiest method, but without spending thousands on an Exchange Server, it's the best I've been able to think-up.
You should go into your "Tools: Email Accounts" and your "Tools: Options" and make sure everything looks correct!
If everything went well you should have all of your contacts, emails, calendar, to-do's, and such located on your secondary storage unit and being viewed by any computer you now plug your secondary storage unit into!
A Few Things To Consider:
Here are a few things I've noticed that have crept up since I first did this...
1) When you use the MS tool to export then import your settings, it doesn't copy over the passwords for all of your email accounts, so you'll have to enter them the first time you attempt to check your email.
2) If you are a Plaxo user (which, if you are not and you use MS Outlook, you should go download now and start using!) it is going to ask you to reconfirm your Plaxo account with each new machine you do this too. Not a big deal, but a bit of an annoyance.
That's All Folks!
John B. Abela
|
|
Author: abelajohnb
Location: California USA
Gender: Male
Age: 36
Blog Entries: 154 (archive)
Blog Comments: 0
raised in a private christian school until his senior year, mr. abela has been around the christian faith nearly his entire life. at the age of twenty-two mr. abela was called to the ministry as a lay-minister where he served as a youth minister for nearly seven years and then...
view full biography
God Came, Christ Died, Christ rose, John Was Born, John Believed!...
When Things Just Don'...
Google Finally Taking A H...
Sometimes you are running...
Congrats to tohimbeglory ...
What Is Faith? I Doubt Mo...
Crosses In The Sky!...
7 Amazing Misty Morning P...
Susan Boyle, I Dreamed a ...
Native American Bible...
Encountering Old Friends...
|
Log Into Chatroom 
