Tips To Resolve “cannot Open Ost File...” Error

By Author: John Peter
Total Articles: 69
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When a Microsoft Outlook 2000 user uses MS Outlook with an Exchange Server, s/he has the facility to work with folders offline. The changes performed in the folders (when the network is down) automatically get synchronized with the Exchange Server data, when the user reconnects to the server. However, there are many situations where the synchronization fails and the data saved in the OST file becomes inaccessible. Such synchronization issues occur when MS Exchange Server is not available, OST file is corrupted, or there are network issues. To access the data saved in the OST file in such situations, the user needs to convert its OST file to PST file, and then access it in MS Outlook. To systematically do so, the user needs to opt for an effective third-party OST to PST software.

To explain the above case in detail, consider, you made some changes in your OST file. However, when you attempt to synchronize the OST file with the server, you find that the MS Exchange Server no longer exists. When you try to access the OST file, you encounter the below error message:

Cannot open OST file. You must access Exchange at ...
... least once to use the OST file.

After the above error message appears, the data, such as, calendar entries, contacts, e-mails, and more become inaccessible. You encounter the same error message each time you try to access the OST file.

Cause:

The above error message appears when the user tries to open an orphaned OST file.

Resolution:

To resolve the above error message and to access the OST file data, you will need to Convert OST to PST using a third-party conversion application. Such commercial utilities employ advanced, yet safe mechanism to convert OST file to PST. These OST to PST tools are built with interactive user-interface which make them easy to understand and operate. Once OST file is converted, the file can be opened in MS Outlook.

Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Desktop is a powerful, safe, and easy-to-operate application that can Convert OST to PST in just a few mouse clicks. These tools are competent enough to convert almost all OST file components, including e-mails, calendars, and contacts. Supported by MS Outlook 2003, 2002, 2000, 98 and 97, the read only tool is designed for Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, 2000, and NT4 (SP6).