C Drive Low on Space? Need to move your Outlook OST? Don't! Create a symbolic link instead!

-
I have my HD partitioned into a C: and D:. C: is about 100gb and the plan was to use it for the OS and Office. D: is about 900gb and I use it for everything else – downloads, OneDrive, etc.

I noticed my C: drive was running out of space and the culprit was my Outlook OST!! My OST was about 48gb!! (I like to download the maximum amount so searches go faster.)

I tried to move the OST to D: using the “Account Settings...” and even editing the registry, ut Outlook was not having it. It kept recreating the OST on C: and ignoring the OST file I had moved.

So, I decided to play a trick on Outlook.

First, I created a folder on D: called Outlook. Next, I closed Outlook and *MOVED* my OST from C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\ to D:\Outlook\

Now for the magic. I created a symbolic link to the OST file!! (You can also use the junction tool from Sysinternals.)

From a CMD prompt: mklink C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\emailid@contoso.com.ost D:\Outlook\emailid@contoso.com.ost





I relaunched Outlook and without blinking, Outlook is now using the OST on D: but *THINKS* the OST is on C:!

And now my C: drive has free space again!!

Good luck!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dell Latitude 5501 64GB of RAM? Yes!

-
Image
Imagine my surprise when my Dell Latitude 5501 was able to be upgraded to 64GB of RAM when the specifications state it has a maximum of 32GB. My guess is marketing. They want to sell you a more expensive model that officially supports more RAM. Here is a link to the RAM that worked for me. Anyway, if you are looking to upgrade your 5501, go ahead and move to 64GB.
Read more

ConfigMgr Task Sequence Fails Immediately with "The software could not be found on any servers at this time."

-
Image
Happy Monday, fellow ConfigMgr administrators! I ran across a pretty difficult Task Sequence last week that had me scratching my head. It involved a pretty complex Task Sequence that contained over 50 applications. The Task Sequence would fail within 5 seconds upon launch from the Software Center with an message of  “The software could not be found on any servers at this time.” No error code was given. I ended up removing all the apps from the TS and adding them back one at a time. Many of the applications had at least one supersedence, dependencies and dependency chaining. It turned out there was one particular superseded application that  was missing its content!! Yeah, that would do it. Unfortunately, ConfigMgr did not log what application or package ID had its content missing so it was a crap shoot trying to find it.  I really feel like there should have been a log somewhere that gave this information. This is the only log info...
Read more

Unable to open Start or Search after Window 7 to Windows 10 1809 Upgrade

-
Image
This one was a real head scratcher. After upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 1809, you could not open the Start Menu. When you would click on it, nothing would happen. You could also not perform a search. I saw in the System event log: "The server Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost _10.0.17763.1_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy! App did not register with DCOM within the required timeout." about every 30 seconds. I noticed the same thing with Cortana. and "The server Microsoft.Windows.Cortana _1.11.6.17763_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI.AppXfbn8w4s0jbk3tjevpcn9kaxerc6rby8k.mca did not register with DCOM within the required timeout." I captured a procmon trace and found: Both ShellExperienceHost.exe and SearchUI.exe exit with an error (-1073741790 which is Access Denied) as soon as they try to load sysfer.dll (part of Symantec Endpoint Protection). See https://support.symantec.com/us/en/article.TECH252314.html Evidently, sysf...
Read more