Significant flaw in desktop search - Outlook

[BlueRidge]

Be careful if you use Yahoo Desktop Search to index your Outlook mail!

Indexing keeps your mail file (.PST) locked. This causes it to be skipped by backups.

It would be a nasty surprise to have to restore a mail file backup, only to discover that it was never backed up due to Yahoo locking it.

A workaround it to manually stop Yahoo indexing before a backup runs. I've not found a command line way to do that, or I would include it in my backup command file.

[rustybrick]

I got a response from Yahoo on this for you:

There are actually very few steps for you to execute.
Assuming that you'll be running a batch file to execute the backup:

1) Add a line to the batch file, prior to running the backup

c:\> taskkill.exe /f /im "YahooDesktopSearch.exe"

2) Add another line in the batch (after the backup is executed) to restart YDS.

c:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Yahoo! Desktop Search\> YahooDesktopSearch.exe

(Note: the path above may be slightly different on your computer, though this is the default path)

If this is done correctly, every time his backup is run, YDS will be shut down before and restarted after the backup is complete.

[dannysullivan]

I've seen a few desktop search tools do this. I seem to recall Google Desktop sometimes would lock Outlook, though I haven't noticed that recently. MSN Desktop search would do the same. I don't do automated backups. Instead, I simply copy my PST and other items in my "Working" area to a separate hard drive each night. So if PST is locked, I know about it, because the copy attempt gives me an error message. I get around that the old fashioned way -- ctrl-alt-delete, then processes, then I kill off whatever I've learned might be locking the file. It is annoying. I wish the somehow, someway, either windows/outlook/the programs were smart enough to let you copy even if the file is in use.

[BlueRidge]

Thanks for the idea.

"taskkill.exe" isn't a program valid program on my Windows2000 installation. Must be for XP...

I just manually stop it before backing up.

BTW. I use robocopy.exe (a free msft tool) to mirror my disk to a backup server.

I don't see why Yahoo needs to lock the outlook file, when they're only doing periodic indexing.