Outlook data files

Why call it Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst)?

Microsoft please change it to Microsoft Outlook 2003 Personal Folders File (.pst)?

Note: And NO I don’t believe the file format will never change again

Figure: No consistency and no forward thinking by Microsoft here

Figure: No consistency and no forward thinking by Microsoft here

Replied Mails aren’t in the same group

When I click “Subject” I would expect that the yellow items are grouped together. The replied mails should be in the same group as the original mails, even if they have the prefix “Re:” or “Fwd:” in their subjects.

Figure: The yellow items should be in the same group

Figure: The yellow items should be in the same group

And other ones along the same lines – these 3 should be together

Figure:  Screen capture from Outlook 2003 Beta 2

Figure: Screen capture from Outlook 2003 Beta 2

When in conversation thread view in Outlook, why cant these two be threaded together?

Figure: Outlook won't thread the two messages together

Figure: Outlook won’t thread the two messages together

Cannot Edit Mail Folder Name Directly [Fixed in Outlook 2007, the textbox is disabled]

In the folder properties dialog, a text-box containing the name of the folder appears. The text-box is not disabled, yet its contents cannot be edited. To change the mail folder name, the user must click the Customize button.

This is illogical and confusing. Microsoft should either allow editing of the name without having to click Customize or disable the text-box altogether.

Conflict errors and Conflict Resolver

We need field level replication and a Conflict Resolver like SQL Server.

When two users make offline modifications to the same public folder entry, then they get conflict errors.

conflict
This has similar issues to SQL Server Replication but more because:

It works at an entire email level, not a field level like SQL.

The conflict resolver doesn’t even point out the differences you have to look through them manually

Limitation on Sort Method

While developing our product SSW eXtreme Emails! we wanted to add a feature that sends an email with history. We wanted it to simulate how Outlook keeps the history on an email. So by code we wanted to:

  • Go to Sent Items
  • Find the last email sent with that subject (sort by DateSent)

However, you can’t sort on the Sent field. It seems totally crazy to me that the sort method cannot be used on the sent field.

This is a primary field I would want to sort on!

By the way: The DateModified has a sort method.

Making Read Receipts useful

When you send an email you could have a flag “Requires Action” or “FYI”.

When you look in your sent items there should be a column showing the status:

  • Not received
  • Received – read
  • Received – unread
  • Replied
  • Forwarded
  • Deleted
  • Recalled

Note: This isn’t a normal Outlook feature, it requires Exchange Server.

Figure: Mail item properties dialog

Figure: Mail item properties dialog

Autocomplete Email addresses

This autocomplete feature is very useful however when I move to a new PC and setup my outlook with my old Outlook Data File (.pst) I lose all my history of email addresses. Very disappointing.

If we want to keep it Microsoft expects us to figure out NK2 files or something

In addition this file appears to be binary, instead of XML, so we cant work with them eg. I want to combine 2 files together from different PCs.

Figure: AutoComplete feature in use

Figure: AutoComplete feature in use