How does Outlook work? (Outlook 2000/2003)

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I have been using Outlook on an NT network, with Exchange server and public folders, for about 5 years and I still have no idea where files are saved, or where I can go to try to find old e-mails, old forms, our .pst files. When I open up the folder list I have my mailbox with a whole bunch of folders underneath that, then Outlook today, with a whole bunch of folders under that, and then there are our company folders, where we keep our list of suppliers and clients. I know that some stuff is kept on my local workstation, and I assume that the public folders are kept on the server.
Last night I deleted a form we were using for viewing our supplier contacts, thinking that I was only going to delete it off of my machine. Now it seems that I have deleted it from everyones computer. We had custom fields in this form (tax #’s, job #’s). Are they gone to? Is all of that information gone? Isn’t there a central database structure somewhere (that hopefully I didn’t wipe out).
Any help is much appreciated.

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Exchange has a recover deleted mail facility – which like all the rest of your items is almost certainly held on a server. This normally is configured to cover at least the past month. I do not know, however, how it would deal with a form. You need to ask the System Admin. If necessary, you should be able to recover the form from a backup. HTH

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unkamunka addressed your specific problem, but if you want more general information regarding where data is stored, in a Server environment it’s both on the Server and on your a PST (it’s possible but not common to run everything on the Server and not use PSTs). In a serverless standalone setup (formerly known as Internet Mode Only) it’s all stored in the PST.

The default folders in a Server environment are always on the Server. You can tell what kind of information storage service any particular folder tree is in your Outlook client by right clicking the parent item and selecting Properties | Advanced. In a Server environment there is also some intentional duplication of information between the Server and your local PST, for example with typical default settings under Tools | Options | Calendar | Free/Busy Options, items will be both in your PST and published to the server, so that folks can see your availability for meetings.

For more information on PST’s search this Forum for discussion on attaching and detaching PST files. (The menus relating to PST file management changed significantly between 2000 and 2003.) Outlook can handle multiple PSTs. An archive is a PST intended to store data that doesn’t need to be currently available.

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Hey thanks guys (or girls) You have put on the path. I will see if I can figure it all out. That is great help!

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