Outlook data on shared drive

[mgerbasio]

Hi,

I don't have much, well any, experience with VMWARE but I have been using it for a couple of weeks. I have a WinXP VM setup and running on a Vista host.

I'd like to access my Outlook (Exchange Server) using the VM but keep the data on the Vista VM Shared host folder. The problem is our VPN client only runs on XP and I have Vista on my home PC. Does this sound like a good idea, keeping the outlook data files on the host or is there something I should watch out for? Thanks.

Regards-Michael G.

[KYordy]

Maybe I don't fully understand, but you should be able to map a network drive on the Vista to the XP machine. That way the drive is, for all intents and purposes, available under XP to the VPN.

Good Luck!

[AWo]

You can do this. It has the same pros and cons as any other drive, mapped or not.

The question is more is this replicated data (your .ost file which is the local replica of your mailbox data on the Exchange server, for example when you use the "cached modus" within Outlook) or is it a local .pst file with no copy somewhere else.

You just have to be aware that when you keep it on the mapped drive and you move your guest to a different host, it will not be moved with the guest.

Backup considerations:

In case of the .ost file, you can always recreate it from the exchange server if something is lost (except changes made local when offline).

In case of the .pst file make a backup, either only the file (if you keep in in your guest or host) or the whole guest (if you keep it in your guest).

Andreas Woithon

[rsa911]

Michael,

You don't any local data file, outlook will retrieve in real time the emails from exchange once the vpn session is established...

so connect your vpn session then start and configure your outlook client..

be sure cached mode (in case you're using Outlook 2003 or 2007) is disabled to prevent any offline file creations...

all the changes you'll made will be directly done on the exchange server, outlook does not need to store anything local...

[AWo]

You're right, you don't need to. But for convenience (working offline for example) you have to use .ost files and especially over a WAN link (like VPN) it is better to use the cached modus. Otherwise you will face a slow Outlook client depending on what you do.

And if he is talking about a .pst file, this has to be local.