How do I open an MS Outlook Archive?

Question

I have an Outlook archive file that was made in Office XP Standard edition 2003. I am currently running Office XP 2002 SP3 but cannot open the archive file with my version.

Answer 1

You won't be able to. Office 2003 and Office XP use different formats for the PST files.

Your best bet is to create a new PST file in Office XP, then open that file in Office 2003 and copy your archived mail from the 2003 PST file to the XP PST file, then take the XP PST file and open it in Office XP.

Answer 2

Within Outlook go to

File => Open => Outlook's Data file

then locate your file (it will end with PST as the extension) then click OK.

If you don't know where it is stored, then:

Tools => Options => Other => Auto Archive

Then get the location from the box labeled "Move old items to" and then Open the Outlook Data file by going to:

File => Open => Outlook's Data file