Peenie Wallie

Or, you could get rid of some of your mail...PST files were designed for a reason to be limited to 2gb. You shouldn't have 2gb of mail on your profile, unless you want a very slow outlook. Putting it into multiple pst files is the way to go - you put one or two files on a DVD (although why someone would have 4gb of personal email saved that they need to go through, I don't know...)
This way, you have the advantage of having files in backup - yes this means outside of the physical computer - and a faster loading outlook.

Mike's comment is sort of typical of the IT mentality. They don't get why anyone wants to save their email. The problem is that the bitheads in the IT department aren't really concerned with your business requirements. (Surprise, surprise.) They have a fixed amount of disk space available, and they could care less if you do your job at all. All they know is that, if you go over their 10 Meg limit, the world will come to a screeching halt. This is unfortunate, but it's the nature of the IT department.

Deleting my email is just absurd. It's a stupid, knee-jerk suggestion. I don't want to delete it. Redesign the application to do what I want it to do. I'm not alone on this. This is what everyone wants, but the programmers just haven't caught on yet.

Today, a 300 gig hard drive costs $100.00. Each photo I take occupies approximately 4 Megs of space. So, why on earth would my Outlook email .pst file have a maximum size of 2 gig? It's a joke.

Just for the bitheads who still need to be convinced that my business requirements are legitimate, once you make another .pst file, true, you can move email into it. But you can only search one .pst file at a time. So, you can't say I want to find that email that some random guy sent to me about my DUKW two years ago and search your inbox for it. It doesn't work. You have to search each .pst file separately. Now, that's not very convenient, is it? No. It's not. It's stupid.

You've got companies like Oracle looking for new markets to push their database into. Why not create a robust email application like Outlook, but with Oracle RDBMS or SQL Server on the back end? Then, you don't have to make excuses for the laughable limitations of the embarassingly under-engineered .pst architecture.

It would be like someone building an interstate highway system and making bridges that could support vehicles up to a maximum of 2,000 pounds. The engineers are kicking the tires of the Suburbans and the dump trucks and saying 'Why does your truck need to be so big?' They just don't get it.

As far as product design, Microsoft Outlook hasn't figured out yet that people want to keep their email, and they want to keep it forever, and they want to be able to keep it in one place. (Horrors!)

Some day, someone will figure this out. They be like...'Hey! I've got an idea.' What if we let people keep their email, in one convenient place, so that they can keep it in perpetuity! Instead of telling them to delete it, or it parse it into little inconvenient arbitrary folders, we'll redesign the application to fit their needs!'

In the mean time, I'll be subject to scorn and ridicule by the IT department for daring to want to keep my email. How stupid am I?

I had to seperate my emails into differnet pst files also. But to get around the search limitations I installed LookOut (free download at www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/download.html) for Outlook 2003. It has been working great. I can now search all my pst files.

I'm no expert, but from what I understand the 2gig limit went out with Office 2003. Outlook XP still has the 2gig limit, and if you upgrade your Outlook XP installation to 2003 you actually retain your older XP PST format data file and the same 2003 limit. If you either do a clean install of Office 2003, or create a new PST file or profile, you'll end up with the new 2003 PST data file format, which alledgedly has a 30 gig limit. Using Office 2000 and XP I've run into the 2 gig wall a couple of time ... it isn't fun!!! I haven't exceeded that with 2003 yet, but I'm close, so we'll see soon enough. :-)

If you think outlook sucks because of something that effects .01% of Outlook users, then don't use it.

I know this might be hard for you to comprehend, however features are designed for a reason within the limits of current technology. Would you rather outlook used the current file system of windows, allowing for limitless storage yet email search times of minutes in length? This is just one example of the benefits of a .pst file - which provides a database like structure to Outlook.

Given time this will change. A future version of Outlook (or Windows Mail) will have no limits on the size, because it will no longer use a .pst file due to enhancements to the underlying windows architecture.

Besides, Outlook can currently work with multiple .pst files (it may be just 2003) so you can effectivily have an unlimited store - just break out a new pst file.

Take a breath of fresh air and try to think of ways around your so-called 'problem' rather than attack MS because you hate them. To write off outlook due to such a minor issue is more like a symptom of anti-microsoft predjudice than any real problem.