Outlook 2003 users may not be able to use Outlook in offline mode (867807)

SYMPTOMS

After you configure a size limit for personal folder (.pst) files in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, users may not be able to use Outlook in offline mode. When this issue occurs, the Mailbox Cleanup Wizard notifies the user that the mailbox has reached its size limit. This behavior occurs, although no size limit is configured on the mailbox on the Microsoft Exchange Server computer.

CAUSE

This issue may occur after you configure a size limit for .pst files in Outlook 2003 by using the MaxFileSize registry entry. When you limit the size of the .pst files by using the MaxFileSize registry entry, you also limit the size of offline folder (.ost) files. Outlook cannot add to an .ost file when the .ost file reaches or exceeds the limit that is configured for .pst files and for .ost files.

RESOLUTION

This problem was first fixed in a hotfix that is now contained in a service pack. If you installed the latest Office 2003 service pack, you do not have to install the hotfix.

Service pack information

This problem is corrected in Office 2003 Service Pack 2.

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Office 2003. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

870924 How to obtain the latest service pack for Office 2003

After you install the service pack, follow the steps that are listed in the "More Information" section of the article to set the PstDisableGrow registry key and to activate the hotfixes.

Hotfix information

To resolve the issue that is described in this article, install both the following Microsoft Office Outlook hotfix rollup packages. After you install these hotfix rollup packages, you can configure the PstDisableGrow registry entry to prevent Outlook 2003 from creating new items in a .pst file. The PstDisableGrow registry entry does not affecting .ost files.

How to obtain the hotfixes

For more information about how to obtain the Microsoft Office Outlook hotfix rollup packages, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

839629 Description of the Outlook 2003 post-Service Pack 1 hotfix package: August 21, 2004

839647 Description of the Outlook 2003 post-Service Pack 1 hotfix package: September 9, 2004

After you install these hotfixes, follow the steps that are listed in the "More Information" section of the article to set the PstDisableGrow registry key and to activate the hotfixes.

MORE INFORMATION

To enable this hotfix, follow these steps:

Quit all Office programs.
Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
Locate and then click to select the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\PST
After you select the key that is specified in step 3, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.
Type PstDisableGrow, and then press ENTER.
Right-click PstDisableGrow, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
On the File menu, click Exit to quit Registry Editor.

After you configure the PstDisableGrow registry entry to prevent Outlook 2003 from creating new items in a .pst file, modify the MaxFileSize registry entry to use the default setting. This enables a file size limit that should not interfere with Outlook 2003 offline mode. For more information about how to configure the MaxFileSize registry entry to use the default setting, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

832925 How to configure the size limit for both (.pst) and (.ost) files in Outlook 2003