Microsoft Outlook
Outlook.pst and file locking
Microsoft Outlook locks the PST files that contain your messages. One possible error message is "Outlook.pst will not backup as: the process cannot access the file because another process has locked a portion of the file." These locks can remain even if you don't have an Outlook window open.
The solution is to log in as a different user, or even restart the computer and log in as a different user to clear the file lock.
BC version 2 only
If you're restoring a backup of Outlook.pst and the copy fails because of a lock but corrupts the Outlook.pst file, you can avoid this by having Beyond Compare detect partial file locks:
- In the Folder Viewer, select Session > Comparison Control and pick the Advanced tab.
- In the Miscellaneous group, enable the Detect partial file locks option.
Synchronizing Outlook Email Messages
Beyond Compare doesn't provide a method to synchronize email messages between installations of Outlook. However, there are dedicated utilities for this purpose. The Outlook synchronizing tool most recommended by our users is SynchPST. For a long list of Outlook synchronizing tools, see the Synchronizing Microsoft Outlook on two machines page at slipstick.com.
