Desktop Search fails to index PST (Outlook 2007, Win XP SP2)

Ed.

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May 20, 2007, 10:07:00 AM5/20/07

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Hello everyone.
I'm starting to be pretty desperate, crawling the web for days without
finding any answer, so I'm trying to ask my question here.

My configuration is: Windows XP Pro (SP2 + all updates), Office 2007
Professional Plus and (just installed) the latest version of WDS. My Outlook
works with my Exchange mailbox, and I'm also maintaining PST file for
archiving old items (the PST was created in my old Outlook XP, and
transferred to the new machine).

The problem is that, no matter what I try to do, I can't make WDS find
Outlook items stored in the PST! It readily finds all the items with the
specific search words in the Exchange mailbox, but doesn't even show any
result from the PST (which does, of course, have relevant items).
I've tried to uncheck and then re-check the "Personal Folders" option in the
Search Options dialog, tried to rebuild the index - nothing helped!
So as for now, I'm pretty desperate and starting to think about going back
to Google Desktop Search I was using before...
This forum is really my last resort... So any help will be highly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Frank in Houston

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May 29, 2007, 3:14:00 PM5/29/07

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Ed,

I think that you must have the PST open in outlook in order for WDS to see it.
You can control this from Settings>Control Panel>Mail>Data Files...

I am struggling with the same and I am going to try and convert to another
format like .msg to see what happens.

-Frank

bob_dc

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May 30, 2007, 11:20:00 AM5/30/07

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I have the same problem. Since moving to outlook 2007, I can't get outlook
to index my pst files, which are indeed opened in outlook. Google desktop
search does index them, but not outlook. It is very frustrating not to be
able to use the outlook search like I used to use in the previous version of
outlook. I am using windows xp sp2, outlook 2007, and a imap email server
at my university.

Frank in Houston

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May 30, 2007, 6:56:00 PM5/30/07

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Ed,

Solution for getting WDS to index archived PST files:

1) download and install trial version of dtSearch
2) Use their mapitool.exe to convert your PST to .msg format
-- make sure to specify an output directory that is not in a hidden tree or
otherwise you will not be able to naviate to it and add it to the WDS index
list
-- command line something like this:
C:\program files\dtSearch\bin\mapitool.exe -xm c:\path\to\save\directory
myarchive.pst
-- Result will be a tree of directories matching the hierarchy inside the
PST file wiht each message being a separate file.
3) Go into WDS indexer setup and add your save directory or one of its
parents to your index list

pjgrun

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Jun 19, 2007, 7:33:00 AM6/19/07

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I am experiencing similar problem with WDS 3.01 and Outlook 2003. In my case,
only items in the root folder of the .pst are not found. Items located in
folders or subfolders created below the root folder are correctly indexed and
found. Is this also your case?

Frank in Houston

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Jun 19, 2007, 8:26:00 AM6/19/07

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Not sure. Let me check...

Mine works:
Outlook 2003
WDS 2.06.6000.5414

Frank in Houston

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Jun 19, 2007, 8:30:01 AM6/19/07

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Update,

3a) make sure your save folder is not a hidden system folder or WDS won't
let you browse to it and add it to the search list.
4) download and install ifilter for .msg format:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=134ecbb0-c162-4d07-bef3-0b602c4a79dd&displaylang=en

Emmanuel

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Sep 14, 2007, 7:40:00 PM9/14/07

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I has the eaxct same problem. It was working at first and then suddenly
stopped working. I tried everything under the sun. Eventually what worked for
me was to add a test PST file to my desktop and then move just one of my
e-mails to the root of the PST. Suddenly Desktop search picked that up and
then indexed all the rest of my e-mails from my original PST.

I hope that helps.

Emmanuel

LT

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Sep 21, 2007, 3:02:03 PM9/21/07

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In outlook 2007, it stopped indexing the the archive for me as weel as some
random messages. I have restored functionality for now by going to:
Tool - Instant serch - search options

I then unchecked all boxes to search in. ok and then you have to restart
outlook to take effect.

At that point I went back in and rechecked everything and then restarted
outlook again.

It was slow at first but it seems to be working again though much slower
than before. I am suspicious that there is a max index size issue here like
the old inboxes become corrupt after reaching a certain size.

zlatan24

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Mar 18, 2011, 1:25:18 AM3/18/11

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responding to
http://www.1-script.com/forums/Desktop-Search-fails-to-index-PST-Outlook-2007-Win-XP-SP2-article2752--11.htm
zlatan24 wrote:
=?Utf-8?B?RWQu?= wrote:

> Thanks in advance!

-------------------------------------
My problem is similar to this. And almost every moment I have a good
choice for
working out any troubles. To my mind next tool should become one of the
best
determinations in this condition. First it helped me some time ago, second
it
has quite useful resources such as: recovers data from files in *.ost and
*.pst
formats, performs a backup copy of your account in *.ost format and some
others
- http://www.recoverytoolbox.com/fix_error_in_pst_files.html