Setting up Otlook for access from laptop and desktop 1

[nbalasanyan]

I am helping a friend out get a small domain network at his office. He has this strange request of wanting to log into outlook from his laptop or having access to his personal folders that he has already setup on his desktop.

In other words having identical emails and folders on both computers. He does not want to use a vnc type software, because it is too slow, does anyone have any suggestions on how else this can be done? I would really appreciate your replies.

Thank you,

 

[bchizary]

the mails will be held in .pst files, he could set up a share on the desktop, and access that share for the .pst file on the laptop, but it would mean the desktop must be turned on to read emails on the laptop... unless you put the pst on some network attached storage independant of each pc, both a bit of a faffy way to do it tho.

Other option is to put all his mail in a web mail application- hotmail, gmail etc and then you are viewing it on the net not from a pc, so it is available on any machine anywhere.

sure there is another way to do it so i will have a good think about it, and post if i can think of anything!

 

[goombawaho]

Here's what I did for somebody just yesterday. The two computers have to be networked to be able to communicate with each other and the two computers have to be on at the time you want to set up the sync.

1. Share the outlook folder on the laptop where the Outlook data will be copied. share name = share for this example.
2. Set up a batch file that will copy the contents of the Outlook storage folder on the desktop. Something like this:

@echo on

net use x: \\desktopname\share

xcopy C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\*.* x:\ /y

net use x: /delete

exit


3. Run the batch file when the user wants synchronization or have it run as a scheduled task.

 

[58sniper]

Just an FYI that putting .pst files on a network (or any) share is completely unsupported by Microsoft, and not recommended. .pst files are designed to reside on the local machine only.

Pat Richard
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[megadan2000]

The easiest way is just to enable exchage cached mode. This will keep a local copy of the mailbox in a .ost file and any changes he makes to his mailbox will sync when he reconnects to the network.

To enable this just go into the mail icon in the control panel and amend the existing profile and enable cached mode under the server name.