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I am having a problem with Outlook 2003 search on 2 desktops - 1 XP, 1 Windows 7. They are both connected to the same exchange 2007 server. There are several other users connected to the same server, inside the lan and outside using RPC none of whom are having this issue.

When the user searches Outlook, search starts from the date Outlook OST file was created and then searches more recent items. The result is that if user is searching for some phrase, e.g. "Blade" in their inbox folder, search results from months ago are returned first then the more recent results.

If i delete the OST file and restart Outlook it rebuilds a new one, and resynchronizes normally, then search works normally again, however approximately 6 weeks later the problem will start again (see second paragraph).

Anyone experience this ? Any Suggestions ?

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    Have you installed any Office 2003 service packs?
    – Sim
    Nov 8, 2010 at 2:14

3 Answers 3

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After a quick check, I've noticed that Outlook does this for me too. Apparently the problem has persisted into Exchange 2k7 (I'm running 2k3).

It sounds as if this is a known issue for mailboxes that have been moved between exchange stores. The recommended solution is to Export and Re-import the mailboxes (presumably by using exmerge). I wouldn't call this a viable solution in my case, but you may be more patient than I am.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308608

That aside, are you in a situation where those two clients can have caching turned off in Outlook? I'm not (remote laptop), but I'm curious if it's specific to locally cached mail data.

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  • This appears to be a viable solution. Thank alot, i am trying it now. Based on the nature of the problem i won't truly know if it's fixed for a few weeks after making this change. I will post back once i know
    – Khalid Rahaman
    Jan 17, 2011 at 16:50
  • Khalid, did you give this a shot? I'm curious if it worked.
    – Dave
    Sep 8, 2012 at 4:14
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I would comment this if I could... it could possibly be an indexing problem.

I have not ran into this, but my google search put me here...http://www.msoutlook.info/question/47.

Best of luck in finding a solution.

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  • Thanks for that, but I think the problem is at the server. I've reindexed recreated ost, upgraded to 2010 and problem persists. It's only happening for 2 of 15 mailboxes. I've thought about deleting recreating the mailboxes but users will scream
    – Khalid Rahaman
    Nov 30, 2010 at 4:21
  • They might but if it fixes the problem, hooray! You could try taking their email store from the server and exporting it to a pst file. Delete the accounts and then re-create them. Then import the contents of the pst file back in. I haven't had this particular problem before but I have had to re-create users mailboxes in the way I described above. It doesn't take that long..... Good Luck!
    – danbo
    Jan 11, 2011 at 18:16
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Search is done locally (not on server) so this is definitely an indexing problem. Do you use desktop search? If not, switch it on for outlook items.

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