Data File Management confusion after migration

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MishMash

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At home I run Outlook 2007 on a standalone Windows 7 laptop. Up until today I had two outlook.com accounts which I synced to Outlook 2007 with the Outlook/Hotmail connector. All worked well.

A few weeks ago I got an email message from Microsoft explaining about how my accounts would become inaccessible soon and explaining what to do. (I believe this event is called 'migration'?). Yesterday in Outlook 2007 one of my outlook.com accounts became inaccessible. So today I tried to follow Microsoft's procedure, taking the option which involved removing the inaccessible account in Account Settings and then adding a new profile (which I called 'Outlook 2015') via Windows Control Panel/Mail.

All seemed to go well, although when I first fired up Outlook 2007 using my new 'Outlook 2015' profile, I was surprised that Outlook spent perhaps 15-20 minutes populating the folder structure with all my old email messages. (Microsoft didn't warn me about that.) But I can now send and receive emails and, as I say, I can see all my old emails.

One new thing: now in Data File Management there is an additional entry for an outlook.ost file in 'c:\users .... Microsoft\Outlook' which is set as the default. Whereas prior to today in Data File Management there were two entries for my two outlook.com email account (with the filename listed as 'not available') plus an entry for 'Current - outlook.pst in c:\outlook data\' which was set as the default. This is the pst file I backup regularly. I assume it's where all my data is. It made sense for it to be the default.

However now, today, if I fire up Outlook 2007 with the 'Outlook 2015' profile and go into Data File Management and try to set the default back to 'Current - outlook.pst in c:\outlook data\' I get the following error message:

MAIL DELIVERY LOCATION
The Personal Folders File (.pst) you selected does not match the format of your Offline Folders File (.ost) To correct this, select a Personal Folders file that supports Unicode or disable the use of offline folders.

Is this how things are supposed to be, with both a pst file an ost file now showing in Data File Management? Is there anything of concern in that error message? Is it OK if the ost file is the default? It all looks a bit weird to me.

Thank you.

PS: Prior to today I'd never heard of ost files nor had I ever done anything with profiles with Outlook 2007.

PPS: I hope I posted this in the right place.
 
I think I've solved the problem I outlined in my OP.

I've converted the pst file from ANSI (97-2002) format to Unicode. Now I no longer get that Mail Delivery Location error message.

I think I'm starting to understand what's happened historically. Two years ago I changed from using email via my own domains and I went over to outlook.com email accounts. At the same time I started using the Outlook Connector to sync the outlook.com messages into Outlook 2007. What I think I understand now is that at that point Outlook 2007 started working in a different way. It created an ost file and started storing offline copies of my email messages in it. Before then, when I had my own domains, it was storing the email messages in the pst file.

And the current migration to Office 365/Exchange is kind of a continuation of this - in that it's now normal for Outlook 2007 to have both an ost and a pst file.

Anyway I'm thinking out loud here - in case it helps any Outlook 2007 simpletons like me out there reading this who aren't super clued-up about Outlook either.

Thanks.
 
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