Outlook 2003: Reverting back to /Being compatible with a previous version of Microsoft Office Outlook

There could be all sorts of reasons why you want to revert back to an older version of Microsoft Office Outlook. One could be because your demo has expired. Also there could be all sorts of reasons why you need to be compatible with older versions of Microsoft Office Outlook like when your laptop holds a previous version of Outlook while your home computer holds Microsoft Office Outlook 2003.

The new pst-file format of Outlook 2003 is not compatible with any previous version of Outlook. The Outlook 2003 pst-file format is in Unicode while the 97-2002 pst-file format is Non-Unicode. Unicode is a character set that can display almost every written language in the world. This can be very handy when sharing data in a multilingual Outlook environment. Another great feature of the Outlook 2003 Data File is that it can grow to a practically endless size. By default the file can grow to a maximum of 20GB. By using Group Policy or by modifying the registry the file can be up to 4096TB (minus 1MB but who is still counting now?) while the maximum of an Outlook 97-2002 Data File is 2GB.

When you work with Outlook 2003 and you also want your data to be available in previous versions of Outlook you’ll need to continue using Outlook 97-2002 Data Files. Follow these instructions in case you are already working with Outlook 2003 Data Files;

Step 1: Create a new Outlook 97-2002 Data File

1. Create a new Outlook 97-2002 Data File by using File-> New-> Outlook Data File…
2. In the New Outlook Data File prompt screen select Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders File (.pst) and press OK
3. Browse for the location where you want to create the new Data File and press OK
4. If you want you can now set extra properties for the Data File and press OK
5. The new Data File will show up in your Folder List now

Step 2: Copying the data to the Outlook 97-2002 Data File

You can do this in several ways.

Option 1

1. Select the folder you want to copy by clicking on it and hold down the mouse button
2. Drag & drop the folder to the Outlook 97-2002 Data File¹⁾
3. Repeat this for every folder you want to copy¹⁾

Option 2

1. Select File-> Import and Export…
2. Choose Export to a file and press Next
3. Choose Personal Folder File (.pst) and press Next
4. Choose the folder you want to export. In case you want to export the complete Outlook 2003 Data File press Outlook Today select the option Include Subfolders¹⁾ and press Next
5. Browse to the location where you saved the pst-file created in step 1 and press Finish

The newly created pst-file can now be opened in any version of Outlook.

¹⁾ Remember that the file size of an Outlook 97-2002 Data File can’t exceed 2GB. Therefore when the Outlook 2003 Data File is bigger than 2GB you’ll need to create several Outlook 97-2002 Data Files to copy your data to.