What updates the timestamp on my .PST files in Outlook? [OT in uk.d-i-y]

[Roger Mills]

I'm running Office 2007 (yes, I know!) - including Outlook - on my W10-64 Pro desktop.

If, immediately after a re-boot and before running Outlook, I look at the timestamp on my .PST files (Outlook and Archive), I find that they're showing the *current* date and time rather than the time when Outlook last closed down and saved them.

This is a major annoyance because, when I go away for a few days, I copy the files onto my laptop, and when I return I copy them back using Robocopy - which I've told only to copy later files.

But, because files on the desktop are showing the current time, it doesn't copy them.

Any ideas as to what process may be updating Outlook's files when Outlook isn't running?

[Andy Burns]

which timestamp (there are three)?

[Robin]

I have a vague recollection that things which access your .pst file for contacts will do that. Have you checked the Task Manager Start-up list to see what's enabled that might be doing that - e.g. (from even vaguer recollection) One Note, Skype or the like? Or indeed just disabled the lot to see if the issue goes away?

[Sjouke Burry]

Because outlook is running even when you think it is not?

[NY]

It may have a backend which gets started at boot time, even if the user-interface front end doesn't get started until later when you click on the icon.

It's this all-in-one architecture of Outlook that I hate: you only have to make a trivial change to an email folder (new or deleted message) and the whole multi-GB sodding PST file has to be backed up. I much prefer the Outlook Express / Windows Mail / Windows Live Mail architecture where there is a separate file for each email folder (OE/WM) or each email message (WLM), so only a few files need to be backed up and the majority are left unchanged.

It would be nice also if Outlook had the ability of OE/WM/WLM to export an email account configuration to an IAF file so you can transfer the account (without even knowing the POP password) to a new PC.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I think its the Office process which runs all the time, so one supposes that those files hold more than just the emails. I don't particularly like Office myself. I am still using an old hacked copy of Outlook Express for that very reason but I guess tbird would be just as good if you could get used to it, but I think people who use lots of interconnected things like the many other features of Outlook like it for those reasons, but unless you are using the calendar etc, I can see no point in using it for email. Brian

[Roger Mills]

I *do* use Outlook for calendar - and that's probably the problem! I have a gizmo which keeps the calendar and my contacts synchronised between Outlook and my Android phone, and I suspect that's what's updating the timestamps.

I guess I'll just have to falsify the timestamp on my 'away' files before restoring them!

[Ken Blake]

Although I have a complete copy of Microsoft Office, I rarely use any of its programs except for Excel.

I use WordPerfect, which I like much better than Word. I used to use Outlook, but a few months ago I switched to ThunderBird, which I now like better.

[NY]

Yes I liked Word Perfect. I liked the way you could turn on the visibility of the "control codes" which made it very easy to see if you'd got isolated letters of a word that hadn't been correctly selected when applying a format such as italic. It's a shame that Word doesn't have, built-in, a decoder for WP files, for displaying old documents. I started using the DOS version, even before Windows, and although it had a text-mode non-WYSIWYG for composing the document, it could be switched to a preview graphics mode which displayed what it would look like with formatting. Not bad for pre-Windows days. Nowadays it seems absurd that you ever see the document in anything *except* WYSIWYG ;-)

I've got a copy of Office 2007 on my main PC, but I've not bothered buying a copy for the various laptops I've owned or on my Linux computers: I just use OpenOffice (previously) or LibreOffice (nowadays). The Open/Libre products must have made a *big* dent in the sales of MS Office.

[J. P. Gilliver (John]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2021 at 08:58:54, "Brian Gaff (Sofa)" [e-mail]> wrote (my responses usually follow points raised): [snip]

Hacked in what way - to make it work on later versions of Windows than it does? OE was never paid, I don't think. []