Tech Weekly

A rash of users of Microsoft's new Windows Live OneCare service, launched last January 30, have been reporting on Microsoft's support forums that virus scans performed by the service have resulted in the deletion of their OUTLOOK.PST files - the local, centralized repositories of e-mail, scheduling, and collaboration data used by Outlook.

Only yesterday did a Microsoft official make a certified response, saying, "This issue will be fixed in the next engine update, scheduled for Tuesday, March 13." In the meantime, he advises users to manually enter an exemption into their OneCare settings for the personal files folder where the .PST file is kept.

 An Outlook .PST file includes the images of all e-mails a user receives through her local or personal accounts, such as from Internet ISPs or Web-based e-mail services. Attachments to e-mails, even if they appear to be documents, are also encapsulated in this single file. By contrast, Exchange accounts enable these components to be stored and maintained on the server, though the localized portion of account files is still stored within an .OST file on the client.

So if a user at some point in time received a file in her e-mail that contains even a latent virus package, that virus is considered part of the .PST file by OneCare. While it doesn't have the capability to weed through and extract parts from the .PST file like a database - or like Outlook itself - it can detect a virus' signature through a binary scan of the entire .PST file.

What OneCare then apparently tries to do is quarantine the .PST file as a whole, which would render Outlook useless, but only temporarily. Typically, this means the file is transferred into a safe system folder which cannot be accessed by normal means. But it's here where OneCare has apparently been dropping .PST files from the system, and in such a way that third-party recovery tools can't seem to grab them back.

             Source: Microsoft Outlook - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
             Source: BetaNews | OneCare Deletes Users' Outlook Files

So how do you backup your .PST files? You may want to ask yourself this. And the answer is not too complicated. You can follow these brief steps below that asside from some small variations will work with most Outlook versions 2000 - 2007. 

 

1. Open Outlook and then click on FILE>>IMPORT AND EXPORT

 

2. Click on: EXPORT TO A FILE and then

3. Click NEXT.

 

4. Select PERSONAL FOLDER FILE (.pst) 

5. Click NEXT

 

6. Click on the MAILBOX- YOURNAME to highlight it.

7. Put a check in the INCLUDE SUBFOLDERS box.

 

 

8. Decide where you would like to store the backup file by using the BROWSE button. See next illustration below.

9. Give your backup file a meaningful name. As you can see, I named mine emailbackup092804.pst and put it on the DESKTOP temporarily until I can burn it to a CD or a flash drive.

10. Click OK and then FINISH on the subsequent screens.

**It is important to remember where you save this file so you can then back it up to another form of media such as CDR, CDRW, USB Drive, Network Drive, etc.

**If you back this up to your hard drive, and your hard drive fails, you lose your backup!

  

11. When the next dialog box comes up, just click OK

12. Allow the computer to perform the backup. You should see the files being backed up.

13. Locate your backup .pst file and burn it or copy it to another form of media.

Windows Onecare just doesn't seem worth it as you can see from the excerpt from the recent comparative of anti-virus choices done by AV Comparatives they came in at the bottom of the pile. Yet another reason to chose AVG

Labels: Editorial