One PST Backup for all Offices?

Leo625 · 08 Feb 2013

Hi All,

I have a question concerning different versions of Office being able to handle only one .pst file. I would like to keep the same Archive folder accessible to 3 different Office Outlook versions. 2003, 2010, and 2013. I want to use the personal folder backup .exe for each version and I back them up to separate folders on a drive common to all. What I would like to do is be able to only have one folder to back Archive folder to so any version of Outlook can have this file imported and all will be current from the one backup. I have a multi-boot system and different versions of Office on each Windows partition.

Can I use only one backup file for all 3? Is the .pst file compatible with all 3?

Thanks for your time,

richnrockville · 12 Feb 2013

Leo625, Welcome to the windows 7 forum.

What you want to do is not possible due to the internal workings of the .pst file. Each version of Outlook has specific information in the .pst file and they conflict with one another.

So the answer is no. you can name the archive file different for the different versions of outlook but you will have nothing but aggrivation if you try to use the same name for different versions of outlook.

Rich