Microsoft Outlook allows users to manage their email accounts and maintain a calender, to do tasks, make notes and surf the internet. Even though the application is widely used and is known for its efficient functionality, it sometimes encounters problems or errors. For that purpose Microsoft has provided the Outlook Repair tool or the scanpst.exe tool. Lets find out exactly how to locate the tool on the system.
The Outlook email management tool from Microsoft allows users to manage their email accounts by offering archiving options and other email services. The client is most used by those who get a significant amount of email which cannot be managed by simple web based email service. For arranging the information and archiving the emails into groups, the Outlook application from Microsoft is used by thousands of individuals and professionals from around the world. Due to its efficient email management options and simplicity, the tool is used by organisations the world over for managing a massive amount of email accounts. As email is the prefered mode of communication for employees, the company needs to manage the email accounts in order to ensure smooth functioning and a steady line of communication with the employees. Mostly, the Outlook email client is run on the Microsoft Exchange Server or the Microsoft Sharepoint Server in order to offer sufficient storage space for the email accounts. Individuals can also opt for using the software as a standard stand alone version. Despite everything, sometimes the client fails to perform or poses errors which lead to loss of data, prompting users to recover Outlook. In order to deal in a situation in which the application presents errors or one of the files gets corrupted, Microsoft has provided the users with an in-built tool named Outlook Repair tool, which is capable of fixing pretty much any problem that the application might be having. The tool is designed to give a detailed analysis of the problem and fix it automatically. One of the most consistent problems faced by Outlook users if of damaged or corrupted OST or PST file. OST, which stands for Offline Storage Table while PST stands for Personal Storage Table. OST type of Outlook files allow users to access their emails and other information stored on the file when they are offline or not connected to the server. Meanwhile, a PST file allows users to simply store the information such as emails, notes, calender and contact entries along with configurations. When ever these files get corrupted, users are prompted to recover Outlook. Now, the Outlook Repair tool or the scanpst.exe tool is automatically available to the users of Microsoft Outlook email client. In the most recent versions of Outlook, the 2007 and 2010 versions, the tool can be found in the following locations within the system : <disk drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12 and <disk drive>\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14 respectively. Users can also search for the tool by the going to the search function of their Windows operating system and typing ‘scanpst.exe’ in the given bar and clicking on the search or find button. Now for fixing a defunct OST or PST, open the application and manually enter the name of the file in the given field. You can also manually select the file by using the browsing option. You can then proceed to clicking on the ‘Start’ button in order to start the process. Sometimes, even the ScanPST.exe tool fails to fix the file. In such cases users can opt for a third party application such as DataNumen Outlook Repair by DataNumen in order to recover Outlook.