Stephanie said:
I am trying to set up Outlook 2003 for use in my home so my husband
and I can stop entering things twice and ending up with some correct
information in one place and outdated information in the other.
What I would like to do is to be able to sync the input of
information. In other words, if I schedule a commitment in tmy
calendar I would like that information to also appear in my husband's
calendar. Additionally, I would love to do the same thing with our
contacts as well. Is this possible?
You have two choices: one is to use two separate PSTs and sync them. See
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/sync.htm . The other choice (and the one
I'd use) is to actually share the same PST. This is assuming you are using
Windows 2000 or XP, each have your own Windows user account, and each have
your own mail profile.
A little background: by default, PSTs (Personal Folders files) are created
in %USERPROFILE$\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook, which is
a hidden folder (actually, the "Local Settings" folder is the hidden one,
causing all of its subfolders to be hidden as well). You can see the
contents of hidden folders by enabling that option in Control
Panel>Appearance and Themes>Folder Options>View (or just Control
Panel>Folder Options>View, depending on which Windows and which Control
Panel View you use).
With Outlook closed, one of you should copy his or her PST to a shared
folder, like Shared Documents\Outlook, then start Outlook. Outlook will
complain that it can't find your folders and offer a browse window. Browse
to the PST in the shared folder, select it, and click OK. Close Outlook.
Now go to the other account and rename the PST in that person's Windows
account. Choose another file name, but keep the type ".pst". Again, when
you start Outlook, it will complain and you can browse to the shared PST,
select it, and open it. Now both of you will use the same PST, sharing all
mail folders, Contacts, Notes, and so on. Finally, in Outlook, click
File>Open>Outlook Data File, browse to the PST you renamed, select it, and
click OK. You'll now have two PSTs in your folder list. You can then move
the items in it to the shared PST. You can also, if you wish, give that PST
a new display name (risght-click on it, choose Properties, click Advanced,
and enter something else in the Name field). This will give you not only
shared folders, but private folders. You can move any messages that are
irrelevent to your husband into your private folders. Since thse folders
aren't in his profile, he won't see them. Likewise, he can create a second
PST for himself and put it in his Windows user account. You'll each have
the main, shared set of folders and a set of private folders.
I hope this helps.
