Good afternoon. For legal and regulatory reasons, our company has disallowed the use of .PST files in Outlook 2007 for email archival, opting instead for a third-party solution. As they have disabled PSTs through Group Policy, our users are receiving errors when using the "Connect to Outlook" feature in SharePoint 2007 calendars, lists or libraries. Further research has revealed a way to fine-tune Group Policy such that PST usage is still limited, but the Outlook features which rely on special PSTs are not disabled. http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/management-administration/managing-outlook-2007-through-group-policies-part2.html However, our organization is also concerned with and has experienced these special PSTs growing very large, as many of the lists we are integrating with Outlook contain big attachments. I understand this is because the attachments are added into the special .PST file, where they are subsequently available for offline use. However, the number of laptop users in our company is small, and laptop users typically work through Remote Access, so offline access is almost never needed. My question is, is there any way to use "Connect to Outlook" functionality but disable offline access, so the large attachments remain within SharePoint and do not bloat the size of the .PST? Thank you for your assistance.

This seems as asked to be an Outlook question. If you want to do anything in SharePoint itself, I suggest you disable (or make invisible) the Connect to Outlook functionality, because in my opinion once you use that you are moving control to Outlook and it is Outlook that will decide on whether or not to increase the size of its pst files.SP 2010 "FAQ" (mainly useful links): http://wssv4faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx WSS3/MOSS FAQ (FAQ and Links) http://wssv3faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx Both also have links to extensive book lists and to (free) on-line chapters

Thanks for the reply Mike. We don't want to disable the Connect to Outlook functionality, as our users do like the integration with SharePoint. The problem is, if we have synchronized a SharePoint Task List with Outlook, and items in the Task List have very large attachments, these attachments are copied into the SharePoint Lists.PST file. While this does allow users to access the attachments from Outlook when working offline, it also requires twice the storage. We'd prefer for the attachments to remain within SharePoint when the users click Connect to Outlook. If the user needs to access the attachment, they can go to the list item in SharePoint and access it from there. Is it possible to specify this restriction through Group Policy, a setting in Central Administration, or otherwise?

> We'd prefer for the attachments to remain within SharePoint when the users click Connect to Outlook. My feeling is still it's up to Outlook what it does with the attcahments. I can't see there being any of the suggestions you make (Group Policy; Central Admin settings) that will say "allow attachments but remove them on stuff moved to Outlook" In SP the simple answer would be to ban attachments. Per List that's a standard parameter. But then maybe has some better ideas so I'm out of here. MikeSP 2010 "FAQ" (mainly useful links): http://wssv4faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx WSS3/MOSS FAQ (FAQ and Links) http://wssv3faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx Both also have links to extensive book lists and to (free) on-line chapters

I suggest you disable (or make invisible) the Connect to Outlook functionality, I am looking to do exactly that, do you have a link to an article the tells how to do that. Preferably "no code" if possible. Thank you, Eric

> I am looking to do exactly that, do you have a link to an article It's to be done by using SPD 2007 no doubt. As this is a question for the Design/Customization forum, please post it there as a new thread. The OP in this thread seems to be happy with what has been said so far (as he has vanished a while ago).SP 2010 "FAQ" (mainly useful links): http://wssv4faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx WSS3/MOSS FAQ (FAQ and Links) http://wssv3faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx Both also have links to extensive book lists and to (free) on-line chapters