MS Outlook

Big Chris

Big Chris

Big Chris

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I've got a job interview & technical test tomorrow for a Desktop Support role in London, I'm pretty confident with everything they're going to ask of me, except Outlook.

I've supported Lotus Notes for 3 years and never really used Outlook, the chap said I might need to brush up on the basics before the test, so what do I need to know? I'm not asking to be taught the app via this thread, just want to know what I should look into and if I can find such info on the web anywhere?
 
use of PST files? file limits? I think they can only be 2Gb before you have trouble with them. I remember having to split someones 2.2Gb PST file into two as Outlook simply wouldn't load them.

It wouldn't surprise me if it was part of what he was thinking about, in my old support role PST were a major pain, especially with councillors and senior management who refused to delete any e-mails that were less than 8 years old and insisted on sending each other bloated holiday snaps.
 
A PST file is the Personal Folders file that holds all the settings for a user. Things such as Messages in their Inbox, Contacts, Calendars etc. They start off small but tend to grow to humongous sizes the more information you add to them. They are only really suitable for personal environments as opposed to corporate environments. Although they do work. It all depends on your network setup. PSTs generally have to be kept on the local machine. Microsoft actually state that it doesn't support PSTs being used on a network share.

For network emailling, Exchange or another suitable Email server program are much better methods of managing Email, calendars, contacts etc.

You ask any support personnel what is their main problem with Outlook the majority will probably say PST files!

Other than that, it's pretty simple. It supports all the usual email setups, POP3, IMAP. It also supports some types of webmail. Windows Live Mail (Hotmail), Gmail etc.

Hope that helps!
 
Outlook has "personal folders" these are local folders that are stored on the local computer (or server if you specify a path for them). It's a sort of "offline" storage, so they're not held on the server anymore.

that's my understanding of it anyway!

They have to have personal folders setup which is a doddle to do and if you get stuck hit F1 for help and you'll figure it out in about 10 secs!

Outlook is a pretty easy to use and support program.. usually :)
 
Big Chris said:
Thanks guys, appreciate your input so far.

I've heard Exchange mentioned a few times too, what's that all about?
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Exchange is an email, messaging and calendar server which is basically the network backend to Outlook. It can also be a pain to troubleshoot, so hope that you don't have to deal with it until you have more experience.

Burnsy
 
I see, hope there's not too much about it in this test tomorrow then!

If it works anything like a backend Notes server then I might be able to guess my way through it.

We'll see though...
 
Big Chris said:
If it works anything like a backend Notes server then I might be able to guess my way through it.
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It is the MS equivalent, but very different to Notes in its structure.

For a desktop role pretty much all the information you will need to use integrates in to AD Users and Computers (mailbox limits, forwards, etc) so that would be where to look first.
 
I'm a Network Admin for a medium sized company & i support everything. The users, email, anti-virus, back ups, hardware, software etc etc.

I'd be very surprised if they asked you about .pst files. Surely they would simply want to know what you do or don't know? If you don't know about it, surely that would be obvious on your CV? Personally if you don't know about something it'll be obvious & pretending that you do would make you look a bit silly imo.

Exchange is like anything, once you've played with it a bit it's pretty straight forward. If they like you & you have plenty of other good points going for you, they could always send you on an Exchange course!

Exchange is simply creating email accounts for uses. Yes it does lots of other fancy stuff......but that's the bottom line. Email.
 
Big Chris said:
Thanks guys, appreciate your input so far.

I've heard Exchange mentioned a few times too, what's that all about?
Click to expand...

Exchange is what Lotus Domino tries to be and fails at :) Like Outlook vs Lotus notes, once you have used Outlook you will wonder why anyone in their right mind will touch Lotus/domino, its that bad!
 
Last year I moved job where I was using Outlook and Exchange to a company using a version of Lotus Notes from 1997!! What can I say, apart from its bloody awful. Not sure what the current verion of Lotus is like?!
 
if asked how to troubleshoot an exchange database, mention eseutil and isinteg tools, eseutil can be used for consistency checks and offline defragmentations to recover lost space from deleted mailboxes and mail. isinteg is better for checking consistency. for an offline defrag its suggested that you need 110% freespace (110% larger than the database itself) to carry out the defrag. Read up on the limits of exchange databases and the merits of having enterprise, basically unlimiting (to a ridiculous extent) the size the database can grow to.
Get onto technet and get some reading done.
 
brendy said:
if asked how to troubleshoot an exchange database, mention eseutil and isinteg tools, eseutil can be used for consistency checks and offline defragmentations to recover lost space from deleted mailboxes and mail. isinteg is better for checking consistency. for an offline defrag its suggested that you need 110% freespace (110% larger than the database itself) to carry out the defrag. Read up on the limits of exchange databases and the merits of having enterprise, basically unlimiting (to a ridiculous extent) the size the database can grow to.
Get onto technet and get some reading done.
Click to expand...


Except with Exchange 2007 where Standard has a DB limit of 16TB.... Which is good news :)
 
When using exchange, outlook clients do not store pst files on the local machine, however, outlook can be put in cache mode (offline mode) so the user can work when not on the network

The offline information is stored in ost files (outlook offline storage file). These are pretty much the same as pst files and have the same 2.2gb limit.

Also look into outlook public folders
 
brendy said:
****** knew someone would add that in :D Good Show!
Click to expand...

No probs :D

Nice to see they have increased the amount of Databases you can have as well, only up to five, but it all helps. And the price is still the same. Bargain!
 
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