Many people in my organization like to use Cached Exchange Mode in Outlook 2003. One thing we are seeing is confusing me. The way I understand Cached Exchange Mode to work, Outlook leaves all the messages on the Exchange server, but downloads a copy of all the messages onto the local workstation, saving them in an .ost file.
What we’re seeing on just a couple of accounts, not all, is that if you get the folder size information through Outlook 2003, it might show a mailbox that is 48MB in size (taking one account as an example). If I look in Exchange System Manager, this person’s mailbox is 2MB in size. Needless to say, this user doesn’t want to lose their mailbox if their computer crashes or if I switch them so they are not using Cached Exchange Mode. Can someone tell me what is happening here? Does the server still hold all their messages? If so, why doesn’t the mailbox size come close to matching?
Thanks for your help!