How can I view the contents of my .pst files without MS Outlook?

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Guest

My hard drive crashed. My data was recovered and now I am reinstalling all of
my applications. I am running MS Office Oro 2003. I have 12 recovered .pst
files and need to view them in order to determine which contact list is my
most current. Is there a non-Outlook application (such as MS Word or
something) that I can use to view the contact lists?
 
No, you'll need to use Outlook to view the data.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Why not conduct a Windows search for .pst files (include hidden files) and
then see which one has the latest date stamp?

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

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After furious head scratching, david.atkins asked:

| My hard drive crashed. My data was recovered and now I am
| reinstalling all of my applications. I am running MS Office Oro 2003.
| I have 12 recovered .pst files and need to view them in order to
| determine which contact list is my most current. Is there a
| non-Outlook application (such as MS Word or something) that I can use
| to view the contact lists?
 
Thank you for the response Sue. The date stamps are "last modified" dates and
don't really seem to correlate with the data dates. How do I view my contacts
data with Outlook? Right now I have six "Archived Floders" in my Outlook
files view, none of which are the ones I need and now I can't "close" three
of them because I get a "Can not find object" error. How do I get rid of the
olld ones? Some of my Archived Folders have "Contacts" associated with them
and some do not. Why is this?
Thanks,
David
 
Thank you Milly. The date stamps are "last modified" dates and don't really
correlate with the data dates. My initial search didn't include hidden files
- I will try this tonight.
Thank you,
David
 
The date stamps are "last modified" dates and
don't really seem to correlate with the data dates.
Click to expand...

You're talking about the date stamps of the .pst files. What you need to be concerned about are the dates on the data items. If you want the dates for the data not the .pst file, you need to look at the data itself, and that can be done only in Outlook.
How do I view my contacts
data with Outlook?
Click to expand...

You can add any .pst file to the current session with the File | Open | Outlook Data File command.

Click Contacts in the navigation pane to view your contacts folders or access them through the Folder List navigation page. You can add Created, Modified, and other date fields to any folder view in Outlook using the Field Chooser. You'll probably want to use a table view.
Right now I have six "Archived Floders" in my Outlook
files view, none of which are the ones I need and now I can't "close" three
of them because I get a "Can not find object" error. How do I get rid of the
olld ones?
Click to expand...

"Ghosted" .pst files sometimes appear because files were deleted without first being removed from a profile. You can either ignore them or create a new profile and then open only the .pst files you want to use.
Some of my Archived Folders have "Contacts" associated with them
and some do not. Why is this?
Click to expand...

Outlook does not archive contacts automatically. The most likely explanation is that either the .pst file was once used as a primary information store to which mail was delivered in the Inbox or a contacts folder was copied to the file or manually archived.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
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