Tech Heads, I Need Your Help!

Hi,

I work in IT, have for over 20 years. First, I would consider upgrading to a new laptop. 5-6 years is pretty much end of life for any laptop. They are too old to run most current software versions.

Next, you didn't say what version of Outlook you're running, anything newer than Outlook 2003 will be painfully slow on a laptop that is older than 3 years old.

Next, look at the memory on your laptop, if it's 1gb or less, you need to increase to 2gb or more...here, again, look at a laptop upgrade. Memory is really cheap these days so is a great option if a new laptop isn't an option.

The answer to your specific question though, is you can export all your mailbox data, or data in various folders. You do NOT want to archive to a .PST file unless you forever want that data in a file outside your Outlook mailbox. The instructions for exporting Outlook data to a file and then to import it back later, or to another mail client can be found on this link: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/import-and...

Other things to consider:
Ensure you have virus scanning software on your laptop and keep it current.

Cookies, and other settings related to IE and web browsing won't have any impact on your email speed. Email uses memory and processor...both of which are hardware based.

Perform a hard drive defrag...you can find that by Right clicking on the "My Computer" icon and select the "Manage" menu item. Click on the "Disk Defragmenter" option listed under "Storage" and click the analyze or defragment buttons as you feel is appropriate. A fragmented hard drive, like malware, will slow down overall processing.

Viruses and malware CAN impact the overall processing speed of your computer, not just outlook. Try one of these sites to do a free scan/cleaning of your laptop:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/WelcomePage.asp
http://home.mcafee.com/store/Product.aspx?productid=mss

I hope those suggestions help.

D.

Hopefully, your hard-drive is not dying....
or the mother board.
That is what happened to my computer once. My Dell PC.
Your computer is 5-6 years old....

keep backing up all you can.

How many gigabytes capacity do you have on your computer?
Is it all maxed out???

You can back up Outlook. Don't know how to do it though.
My Hubby does things like that.

If your computer is running like "JUNK" I would suggest just getting it cleaned of all the cookies and spyware that is on there. I would try this first before risking losing anything important. There are websites where you can download the info for free or best buy can do it as well.

Yes you can back up the outlook files just as you would anything else you want to save. If outlook did not come installed on your computer you will have to reinstall it.

I might be stating the obvious but have you done a virus scan, cleared your cache and defragged? That can sometimes help older computers run faster.

I think when you use Outlook it creates a big file (can be pretty big depending on how you use Outlook) somewhere on your c:\ drive. I am not at home right now so cannot check where on my c:\ drive it is but I seem to recall the extension was maybe .pst?

OK -- I googled around and it is the .pst file you are looking for. Check out this link http://email.about.com/od/outlooktips/qt/Back_Up_or_Copy_...

did your computer not come with microsoft outlook? is it the program itself you are worried about loosing or files in it. the program is easily reinstalled. and the files can be backed up on a disc. do you download alot of things? restoring the computer to its factory settings is only going to do you good to clear off things that were attched to other things you download. when you give something permission to download on your computer you are most likely giving it permission to download 5 or 6 other things you dont need. which take up space on your computer and make it run slower. you can check this by going into the program install/unistall option in your computer and seeing if there are alot pf programs you dont reconize

If the computer came with Microsoft Outlook then you should have no problem. However, if there are things on your computer that you don't want to lose, like files and pictures, you need to get a thumb drive that will hold all these on there...