Microsoft Opening Outlook's PST Format 319
protosage writes to tell us that Microsoft Interoperability is working towards opening up Outlook's .pst format under their Open Specification Promise. This should "allow anyone to implement the .pst file format on any platform and in any tool, without concerns about patents, and without the need to contact Microsoft in any way." "In order to facilitate interoperability and enable customers and vendors to access the data in .pst files on a variety of platforms, we will be releasing documentation for the .pst file format. This will allow developers to read, create, and interoperate with the data in .pst files in server and client scenarios using the programming language and platform of their choice. The technical documentation will detail how the data is stored, along with guidance for accessing that data from other software applications. It also will highlight the structure of the .pst file, provide details like how to navigate the folder hierarchy, and explain how to access the individual data objects and properties."
Oh no... (Score:4, Funny)
Another sign of the Apocalypse - and it's a doozy. I always figured hell would freeze over before Microsoft opened up something like the .pst specs.
Re:Oh no... (Score:5, Interesting)
(1) They feel that Outlook is genuinely capable of withstanding competition from the likes of TBird and other competitors, and to be fair, the quality of Outlook has improved a lot. .pst specs.
(2) They feel that opening Outlook's specs will give them access to iPhone app-store like ingenuity from the "crowd" (throw in your favorite buzzword here). Basically, let the hackers go at it and come up with neat little means to improve Outlook usability. If more products carry a "Works with MS Outlook" sticker, that can only be good for outlook (in one line of reasoning).
(3) All the old, seasoned outlook engineers have retired or died, and they're hoping that someone can figure out the
Re:Oh no... (Score:5, Interesting)
Expanding on point 2, Microsoft may want to open up the MAPI specs a little more for the benefit of iPhones and the like. At $DAYJOB, we have Exchange 2003 and a number of users with iPhones and we've seen some bizarre things happen on occasion with calendar entries (weirdness when one of a number of repeating appointments is changed or cancelled and not showing up as changed or removed on the iPhone, that kind of thing). While I'm prepared to believe that it's partially to do with Apple testing more thoroughly with and developing against Exchange 2K7, I can't help but feel that a better understanding of how Outlook communicates with Exchange and a better understanding of how Outlook represents the data internally would help other developers produce something that works better with Exchange.
And that could well be Microsoft's strategy...domination at mail-and-collaboration server end. If they open up the client specs a little more, and that makes Exchange 2010 and beyond more attractive, they've won.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
"MAPI" (Exchange RPC) is being put out to legacy pasture and being replaced with an XML-based API called "Exchange Web Services". That is why Exchange2K7 works better with third party clients.
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I am not sure that your analysis of the binary RPC version of MAPI being replaced is actually accurate.
However it the binary RPC version of MAPI and the related binary RPC Exchange-Exchange interface has been reverse engineered on more than one occasions now, with the OpenChange project providing public documentation and a reference library implementation.
In addition to that, I believe that the protocols are documented under the E.U. mandated API documentation settlement.
Re:Oh no... (Score:4, Informative)
Grandpa AC is correct.. Microsoft is phasing out MAPI entirely and has already replaced it with an open implementation. ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb204042(EXCHG.140).aspx [microsoft.com] )
With the advent of Web Services in Exchange 2007 ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb408417.aspx [microsoft.com] ), clients including Outlook are moving to use standard protocols to access Exchange. Outlook 2007 made a huge step towards using HTTP, XML to access Exchange 2007.
Apple's Mail App requires Exchange 2007 because the Mail.app client is using Web Services to access. ( http://images.apple.com/macosx/exchange/docs/MacOSXSL_Exchange.pdf [apple.com] )
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and "Exchange Web Services" is Patented!
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0113001.html [freepatentsonline.com]
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=846&q=%22Exchange+Web+Services%22+patent+microsoft&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq= [google.ca]
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That's entirely incorrect. I can tell you as an insider that MAPI is going nowhere, as MAPI defines Exchange. Outlook 2010 will communicate with Exchange Server via MAPI, as will the version after that.
Exchange Web Services replace WebDAV, which was used by OWA in versions past.
Re:Oh no... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's precisely because .pst doesn't matter that much, but the client-server protocol does, that MS is opening.... the .pst format, not the protocol.
You'll be able to manipulate the data locally, but as soon as you want to send it to or from the server, you'll need exchange/outlook.
nothing to see.
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In other news, Microsoft disables the ability for all of it's software to import and/or export PST files...
Re:Oh no... (Score:5, Funny)
They're switching to OpenPST files (.pstx)
Re:Oh no... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh no... (Score:4, Funny)
With only a single binary 'blob' element...
Re:Oh no... (Score:5, Funny)
Outlook not so good
Re:Oh no... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it is much more likely the reason is (4).
(4) As standards committees and governments adopt open formats, Outlook is at risk of being rejected for the closed format. Opening the format ensures the benefits of the Outlook/exchange server will remain the industry standard in software and support purchases. Like IE, expect some features to simply work better on an Exchange Server with Outlook on Windows while unsupported applications on a foreign OS may have random errors and glitches.
Re:Oh no... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me add another reason:
(5) They don't care about the outlook format because Sharepoint is the new closed format. They don't care if your outlook mailboxes (or .doc or anything else) is in an open format because you put it all in sharepoint. You still can read your mailbox with another program, but because the "metadata" of your IT infrastructure (which isn't a single file, but a lot of files with owners and relationships between all them) is stored in sharepoint you're tied to it for the eternity. This is a brilliant move - Microsoft can convice governments that their outlook and office and all their apps are using open formats, but no government will ask about the openness of sharepoint because it's not an application that reads some kind of document.
Re:Oh no... (Score:5, Funny)
(6) It's a trap!
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(-5) Sharepoint is stored in a SQL server database. The structure is vaguely nightmarish because of the desire for obfuscation, but it is perfectly possible to get the files back out with a bit of work. It is less of a lock-in than a .pst file would be, even with the release of these specs.
I'll bet that Alfresco or Knowledge Tree's commercial products can come up with modules to migrate from a Sharepoint if they haven't already.
Re:Oh no... (Score:5, Informative)
SharePoint was more open that the PST format was prior to this announcement. The (well documented) SharePoint API [microsoft.com] enables access to all content - it would be relatively trivial to write software that could walk your entire SharePoint content dbs and indeed farm to extract all data out in a way that could easily be implemented in alternative products. I'm sure its been done. Hell, there's software that does the reverse (and I know this being a SharePoint guy) - that use the very same API to insert data into a SharePoint environment from say a Lotus Notes environment. And trust me, you have as much access to write as you do to read data.
Repeat after me - SharePoint does not lock your data up. It implements a reasonably good document management, content management, workflow, "intranet in a box" site - it aint no drupal when looking specifically at CMS, but that's one of the many tools on this swiss army knife. Sure, corporations will be 'locked in' to SharePoint, but that is because the alternatives that come close to doing what it does are woeful (*cough* Lotus Notes). They're locked in to its functionality, which - correct me if I'm wrong - is ultimately what you choose one software product over another on.
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A comment from an Exchange developer on the EHLO blog:
"To put it simply you need to move away from PSTs. Larger mailboxes are the answer here. In addition you can leverage, single item recovery, and our messagin
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and to be fair, the quality of Outlook has improved a lot.
I love how Outlook uses almost 300MB of virtual memory at work. Seriously, wtf.
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over 12,000 emails in my inbox
I know I'm hijacking the thread, but buy, read and implement "Getting Things Done". Seriously. You will thank me later.
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(4) They're about to change the pst spec to a different closed standard with some backwards compatibility.
Re:Oh no... (Score:5, Informative)
Reality check:
The PST format is rather useless. You can already access all the data on a Windows machine (which you have already to create it anyway) using Outlook plugins, either a COM Outlook Object Model plugin or a Exchange client plugin, depending on what you need.
So okay, now things like Thunderbird can import the mail from Outlook, which is good for people who use POP3 I guess, IMAP and Exchange store the mail on the server so theirs no real need.
Products won't carry a 'Works with Outlook' sticker because of this, the file is locked when Outlook is open, you you have to use an Outlook plugin if you want to do anything useful with it for normal people who use Outlook.
As someone who writes Outlook plugins for a job, this is rather useless for much other than exporting data from a backup without reinstalling Outlook after a crash of your system.
I.E. useful only in a limited set of circumstances that are really a corner case.
This doesn't do anything for communicating with Exchange, which is really what you want.
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This doesn't do anything for communicating with Exchange, which is really what you want.
Well it isn't what I want. I want TBird (with its calendaring extensions) to be able to read the Outlook address book and calendar from the .pst files.
Then I want TBird to be able to sync to my phone but that's another story and doesn't seem likely to happen so I may as well get an android and run TBird on it.
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I.e., not everybody in the world has your limited use cases. I welcome the opening of the PST specs.
Re:Oh no... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:SQL Server on the desktop considered harmful (Score:4, Informative)
Then either your app quality or your support skills were lacking. Developers routinely run local copies of SQL server on their development machines without having any issues whatsoever. I ran SQL server 2005 for years on my development machine without even noticing it was running. I currently run SQL Server Express 2008 on my development machine and it runs perfectly. I have also installed SQL Server Express 2008 on 1GHz compact pcs with 512mb ram and 4gb of disk space. The only issue with performing the installation on those was freeing up enough space for the installer to unpack itself and run. Installing SQL server is as simple as clicking next a bunch of times.
A desktop machine/os is so slightly different from a server machine/os that unless you are doing something horribly wrong, there should be no performance/functionality difference between running something like sql server on either of them.
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> This is incredibly brave of Microsoft, given that Outlook is so ubiquitous.
Hardly. This is the result of Microsoft having to abide by the results of a court case that they fought against tooth and nail, that they ignored for months, then finally, begrudgingly, realized they had lost. This is Microsoft doing something because they have absolutely no other choice. Everything else has failed, so Microsoft is finally, years later, complying with court orders trying to remedy Microsoft's illegal abuses o
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
one big use I can see is a PST rebuilder, MS tells you to copy anything you want to keep out after repairing a corrupt PST with scanpst but i've found out the hard way that sometimes outlook can read a mail in a PST but when it tries to copy it to another PST it will fail.
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I'm thinking more "The Ring" for software - thousands of software developers open the specifications file and all die horrible deaths within a week.
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Yet another MS "spec"... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Quote from the link you gave:
How many other fast-tracked ISO standards have no conforming implementations.
Answer: at least one. ODF.
Did you have a point?
PST format a dad design idea from the start (Score:5, Insightful)
But honestly, using the PST format in other applications sounds like a terrible idea to me: Those monolithic PST files, which Outlook uses to store mail data get corrupted easily (at least in my experience) and storing all your email data in one gigantic file always struck me as a really bad design choice anyway.
Re:PST format a dad design idea from the start (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly that is why they are opening it. The next version of Outlook will use a new format.
Re: (Score:2)
Ask anyone who's worked in the capacity of corporate I.T. helpdesk peon what they think of .PST files and your answer every single time will be a punch in the face.
Re:PST format a dad design idea from the start (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed that nobody else will want to use this awful, awful format. However, opening it is very important, as it now makes easy to get your mail *out* of that format. There's a lot people's mail locked up in a lot of PST files with no easy way to get them out.
Who cares about PST files anymore? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd wager that Microsoft is willing to do this because the .pst format is becoming irrelevant. Medium and large businesses already want nothing to do with them due to issues with performance and management. That leaves small businesses and a small number of home users. With hosted exchange options becoming more common among small businesses, the need for .pst files is going away very quickly.
Re:Who cares about PST files anymore? (Score:5, Informative)
.pst is an Outlook message database, not Exchange message database. It doesn't matter where your Exchange is hosted, if you use Outlook to connect to it, it caches local copies [wikipedia.org] of all data you worked with in a .pst file on your machine.
Re:Who cares about PST files anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
Our central IT dept gives us something like 100MB of quota on the Exchange server. Running out of quota? The official advice is 'save your stuff in a PST file'.
Of course you can't save your PST on the IT dept-supplied backed-up network drive because MS say "don't do that". So people end up with PST files on unbacked-up local storage on a particular machine...
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I think I work for the same people you do.
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It's more common than you think.
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It's more than MS saying 'don't do that'!
The PST format requires a lot of small direct I/O, and when you mount one over CIFS/SMB you run the serious chance of filling up the queues on the client or even the server. I've brought down a fully-loaded and patched Server 2003 box with a PST -> PST transfer over the wire, and by 'down' I mean really down, not responsive, not accepting new connections, and needing a reboot.
I've restored so many corrupt PST files from backup that I'm considering setting up a Dov
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're lucky if your PSTs get backed up nicely. Lots of people keep Outlook running all the time, and that means it has an exclusive lock on the PSTs. Then the backup process fails to copy the PST.
So we have files that aren't on a backed-up server, can't live on a backed-up network share, and often fail to backup from local starage via local back-up systems.
No wonder people like to print their emails out.
Re:Who cares about PST files anymore? (Score:4, Interesting)
Bingo! I believe MS has already banned PSTs in house. The writing is on the wall where I work. Too many times PST get corrupted which turns into support nightmares for the VIP customers. Once the VIPs (they sign the checks) are sold on getting rid of PSTs and expanding the mailbox sizes they will pay the bill.
what happen to the obligatory tag? (Score:3, Insightful)
what happen to the obligatory tag that gets added on Slashdot to a post about Microsoft "opening up" something, the "itsatrap" tag.
here are some prime examples:
Microsoft Partially Opens Proprietary XML Format [slashdot.org]
(mainly because this happened: Microsoft Open Document Standard Not So Open [slashdot.org])
Microsoft Releases Linux Device Drivers As GPL [slashdot.org]
in fact, there are plenty of other examples in the " itsatrap [slashdot.org] " tag-egory
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We can also tag the sky "blue" if that helps you.
Link to the RFC (Score:2)
So where's the link to the RFC or other plain text document describing the .PST file?
Re:Link to the RFC (Score:4, Informative)
Note that the title of TFS is "Microsoft Opening Outlook's PST Format", not "Microsoft Opened Outlook's PST Format".
The primary source [msdn.com] says that " documentation is still in its early stages and work is ongoing".
Re: (Score:2)
Who will benefit from this? (Score:3, Interesting)
People who program different migration utilities benefit from this, and of course users of such tools. Even wild ideas like Fuse filesystem that mounts it as Maildir.
So, converters, importers, exporters, indexing tools, repair/forensics, optimize/defragment/find duplicates tools, sort, grep.
Also, if its a standard than it needs to be STANDARDIZED, so no special treatment for own products.
Re:Who will benefit from this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not a standard. Its just documentation about an internally developped format that was never fully documented before so that the european union finally shuts the hell up. Nothing more. If people find it useful, so much the better.
Named Socket interface (Score:3, Informative)
Make your named socket a .pst file and outlook can access your real email database through the defined interface.
Nice and spiffy and you don't end up tied to the Microsoft format.
Re: (Score:2)
Good luck getting Outlook to open \\pipe\whatever :)
Hm, can you seek on a file descriptor opened from a pipe?
Embrace... (Score:2, Funny)
Embrace
Extend
Extin... oh wait
I Don't Have a .PST (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I have an .ost file on my laptop you insensitive MS clods.
In Swedish, a .ost file would imply that you have a .cheese file. Maybe it's a really cheesy format?
Thank you RMS (Score:2, Insightful)
And the iconoclastic tree of RMS bears another fruit. You can bet that without the pressure exerted by free and/or open source software and its advocates this would never have happened...
(I now await moderation punishment for having mentioned the name of him is not to be named...)
Awesome! (Score:2)
So now we can write open source tools to fix corrupt PST files!
Don't even think about doing anything open source with PST files, until you have a tool to fix the files when they go corrupt.
Re:Never even heard of it (Score:5, Informative)
"Data portability has become an increasing need for our customers and partners as more information is stored and shared in digital formats. One scenario that has come up recently is how to further improve platform-independent access to email, calendar, contacts, and other data generated by Microsoft Outlook.
On desktops, this data is stored in Outlook Personal Folders, in a format called a .pst file"
Straight from the link in the summary.
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Outlook personal data files *.pst files hold the archived data. The copy of the Exchange database is in the *.ost file. Let microsoft release that file format and we might be able to replace the Exchange data store.
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Not really, Exchange data is still in (ugly) JET databases on the server, and the OST is only the Offline Folders on the client (for when Cached Exchange Mode is enabled).
The Exchange RPC and EWS specs are open, so you could just implement those and dump the contents in an SQLite database or something instead.
Re:Never even heard of it (Score:4, Insightful)
"Data portability has become an increasing need for our customers and partners as more information is stored and shared in digital formats. One scenario that has come up recently is how to further improve platform-independent access to email, calendar, contacts, and other data generated by Microsoft Outlook.
As a linux mail admin, I'm excited that there may soon be a possibility for Dovecot to deliver mail directly into a 2 GB .pst file sitting on my mail server because the PST format*snort* is so*choke* superior to maildHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry--I couldn't keep a straight face.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
What is .pst used for exactly?
The 'PST' or 'Personal STore' file contains the Outlook/Outlook Express Message Mail Box.
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Outlook Express never used PST files (but it could import them).
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Outlook Express uses .PBX as its filke format.
And .PST includes contacts as well as mail.
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It's MS's overly complicated version of a mail spool file.
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With a 1980s-era 3-character file extension, to be sure.
A documented binary format is better than an undocumented one, but it would be better to enable import/export of XML files or some other standard encapsulation.
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A documented binary format is better than an undocumented one
As long as
A) the documentation describes the stuff that exists in the real world, rather than what it would look like in some alternate universe (as is MS's usual tactic.)
and
B) the documentation isn't a bunch of "OOMXL"-like "implement this like Outlook 97 did"
Re:Never even heard of it (Score:5, Funny)
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the most witty comment I've ever read on slashdot. thank you for a hearty laugh :)
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Dunno. Think it's something the "need-a-machine-to-run-my-life" types use.
Re:Never even heard of it (Score:4, Informative)
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Its dumb (Score:2)
I avoid windows at work but guys who VPN in from home have to load that two gig file across the WAN just to check their mail. I tell them to use rdp or another remote desktop instead.
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The hard limit is 2GB, but you can have amusing things happen at any size. Heck, use Outlook for IMAP and it pretty much guaranteed to corrupt your IMAP store's PST. The recommended solution? Exchange Server.
The part that galls me, though, is how users gasp "But how could this possibly happen?" and then get really twitchy about attempting to fix it. People place, I feel, too much faith in computers in general, but Outlook has an incredible white-knight reputation. It's literally the Teflon application:
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Nextly, the "bug" is likely the way the underlying libraries handle the situation, not the application itself. That doesn't make it any better, but MS is great about keeping old code around. Nobody has probably looked at that code in literally years. No freshmen CS is going to be able to outcode management's blind decisions.
Lastly, no one in 2009 is still plagued with th
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It isn't, but what's surprising is how EASY it is to hit 10GB with a PST file - you'd think that that the incredible slowness in Outlook was caused by some sort of mega compression that reduces the file size to a tenth of what it was, but nooooo, I guess it's just a feature - gotta have time to drink some coffee and have a donut while switching between IMAP folders...
Then explain this (Score:5, Informative)
Um, ok, then explain this
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Import_.pst_files [mozillazine.org]
and this
http://www.five-ten-sg.com/libpst/rn01re01.html [five-ten-sg.com]
Re:Then explain this (Score:4, Insightful)
Well.. um.. the first one shows that we don't care, and the second one shows that we would figure it out if we wanted it.
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I mean, seriously, why should TB re-invent the wheel? If theres' one thing i learned from my first library algorithms class, is that if you re-invent the wheel, you're going to take longer and end up with something that isn't likely to be round. The NIH syndrome is very wasteful
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I mean, seriously, why should TB re-invent the wheel?
Do you really not understand this? It's really very simple. It' is better for one programmer to spend 100 hours implementing a .pst import function for Thunderbird than for 10,000 users to spend 2+ hours each (make that 5+ when it is a Linux user who has to install Windows, then Outlook just to import a .pst file) figuring out how to import their data. I don't know what your class taught you but I'm pretty sure most schools teach that it's better to s
Re:I don't believe anyone cares (Score:5, Interesting)
Count me as one who cares. I've had .pst file of old outlook mail sitting around for at least seven years waiting for this kind of news. Being able to import it directly into gmail would be very useful.
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You can just drag those messages off to another machine running IMAP and then have google pop them off from there.
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You may already be aware, or just be wanting a completely non-Microsoft solution, but just in case, assuming you still have access to Outlook you could always open the pst in Outlook, set up your Google Mail as an IMAP account in the same Outlook instance and drag and drop your old mail.
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I support or endorse the parent post. I'm struggling to think of a file format less desirable than PST, in any area of computing. PICT images maybe?
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Sorry, but I don't see any evidence of Microsoft's attitude changing.
I hear lots of talk and activities such as the Codeplex Foundation, but scratch a little under the surface and it all looks like more of the same old microsoft: crush competitors, destroy alternatives to Microsoft dominance on the desktop, make tactical partnerships and strategically ruin the partner.
Basically when Microsoft holds out the hand of friendship, first check if there's a knife in the other hand.
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For instance, while the crowd around here celebrates Dell installing Ubuntu on their laptops... that's Dell backstabbing Microsoft. Of course, MS is always the "bad guy" so presenting them as the victim is frowned upon.
Or maybe Intel r
Re:I can't help but wonder what their motives are. (Score:5, Insightful)
Opening PST means being able to more freely move Outlook data between mail programs such as Evolution. The more interoperable the mail client is, the less it matters if all your engineers are on Linux and all your marketers are on Windows, as this is likely just a step towards being able to have say, Evolution, fully support being able to talk with an Exchange server. If you can get all of the features of Exchange across platforms at the expense of opening specs of a mail client that they don't really make that much money off of anyway, then they'll likely be able to make some more sales of Exchange server.
From a purely technical point of view, that may or may not be optimal, but if every part of the business could tie in with the Exchange server regardless of what operating system they need to run for the rest of their tasks, then it makes it all the more attractive from a business standpoint.
I could just be off base though, but it seems like that is a possible eventuality. This just has to do with data storage I think, but even being able to import contact lists, mail boxes, etc, more smoothly is a good start, I'd say.
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What? .pst is a import/archive format, it has absolutely no relation to Evolution talking to Exchange.
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for bloated, hard customize, even harder to build pig zimbra is, may as well use exchange.
Try Horde and maintain system requirements more inline with *nix standard workloads on a per user basis.
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Trojans don't need .pst format to scan Outlook data - they'd just use MAPI to access it.
Unless you're speaking of Linux trojans... ~
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To update to Thunderbird, or Pronto [muhri.net] like I use. It's particularly useful for business users wanting to migrate off Outlook and have access to a decent code monkey.
Re:Simple: three words (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought that, until I joined an organisation that used Lotus Notes.
PST oh how I miss thee.
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No, it's because PST is of no value. In Microsoft's opinion, "disk is cheap. Give your users bigger mailboxes already".