What?
Microsoft Outlook in all it's recent versions 2000, 2002 and 2003 has an Archive procedure that is turned on by default and typically set to run every 14 days. If you use Outlook's archive feature by default what happens is that you gradually accumulate the messages (before the current archive date) into a secondary Outlook message file named Archive.Pst' (actually this '.Pst' file works very much like a primary Outlook '.Pst ' file). This default approach typically does not make much sense for established Outlook users, and our first guideline is to turn it off!
Why?
The purpose of Outlook's Archive procedure and the file it creates or updates is to move older and presumably less-needed messages into a secondary file that can be accessed as needed. This makes it possible to keep the primary file smaller and more able to respond to the variety of activities that are typical of an Outlook user who tracks schedules, uses contacts, and monitors tasks in the midst of sending and receiving E-mail. It's quite common to find Outlook files that are 1GB, 2GB and with the release of Outlook 2003 even larger. (In earlier versions there was a 2GB limit for an Outlook '.Pst' file that makes it very important to manage the file's size.)
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