I'm IT Support at my job and an issue ticket came in reporting that they can't open their outlook file. It gives an error message stating, “The file H:\Outlook\Email Folder_newold(1).pst is in use and cannot be accessed. Close any application that is using this file, and then try again. You might need to restart your computer. I closed and reopened Outlook, restarted the computer, and closed and tried to reopened that file and still get the same error message. The anti-virus isn't running a scan and the backups don't start until around 7:00pm, so I don't know what could be locking up a .pst file besides Outlook. So far I don't think Windows have a tool that would tell you what process is locking a file and Task Manager doesn't help. So I need help on this one because I'm stuck
I use unlocker when I have a similar issue. It will tell you what is locking and give option to unlock. I see that the site is down, but it is still here. I believe later versions have a toolbar during install. I use 1.9.0 portable, which is here. http://www.afterdawn.com/software/system_tools/misc_system_tools/unlocker_portable.cfm Good luck
This thread might provide some useful advice: http://www.computing.net/answers/office/how-to-restore-outlook-files/19665.html I notice Outlook is being opened from the H drive, rather than the C drive. Are your users Telneting or remoting into their email clients? I also notice there's a (1) in the .pst file name. Was this file replaced or renamed at some point? If the .pst file is corrupt and the repair tools don't fix it, you might be able to rebuild the user profile's email files from the email server, depending on what your email environment is. If you're running Exchange and the system is archiving user emails, you should be able to delete the user's Outlook profile, then recreate it in Outlook and have the Exchange server push back all the emails to the client. However, if the email server isn't archiving, then fixing the .pst file is your only real option.
Did you run the scanpst.exe utility? If not, you should try it for sure. If everything is okay, this means corruption is causing this error message. And the best way to deal with corruption is by using the Inbox Repair tool, commonly known as the scanpst.exe utility. Refer to this article to know more about scanpst.exe utility and how to use it - filerecoverytips.com/use-inbox-repair-tool-repair-pst-file/
