After replacing two servers last week, I think I'm caught up on my work that'll I'll be able to get back on track with 3 tips each week. I hope.
If not, just call me Slacker. :)
When you burn a pst to a CDR, Outlook can't read it directly from the CDR because it needs read/write access to the pst, even if you are only going to read, not change, any items in the pst. You will need to copy the pst to your hard drive and from windows Explorer, change the read flag in Properties before viewing the pst. (Some CD software will remove the read only flag when you copy it to the drive.)
If you have the pst on a CDRW, you can read from the CDRW, but because of the potential for data loss due to corruption it's not recommended. Reading/writing directly to USB and digital cards is somewhat safer because the read/write speed is faster.
There is no magic key to enable Outlook to read a file marked read only. If you need to leave the data on the CD, use an different archive format. See Housekeeping and Message Management: Outlook for some of the archive tools available that will save your messages in common formats. In most cases, you'll be able to search the CD using any Windows search tool and open the items from any computer using common programs.
Published May 6, 2005. Last updated on January 3, 2012.