Question : Solve "Outlook.pst could not be accessed because another workstation has modified it" error

Outlook.pst is on the MS Server 2003 server. A single Outlook.pst file on the server has several profiles (i.e. email addresses) for 4 different users. All users run Outlook 2003 on XP Pro SP2. Three users get no error and send and receive emails all day. The 4th user got the "Outlook.pst could not be accessed because another workstation has modified it" error last Friday, not yesterday at all, and frequently today but still intermittent (i.e sometimes he could receive email and send without the error and sometimes the error occured.)

QUESTION 1: It is implicit in the arrangement above that "another workstation has modified it". ie it happens hundreds of times a day !! IT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN; THE OUTLOOK.PST IS SHARED  AND IS CONSTANTLY BEING MODIFIED BY OTHER WORKSTATIONS (PCs).

So what is the &&%%*** meaning of that error; ie, that is NOT an error condition; it is supposed to happen. Please TRANSLATE the error message to what it REALLY MEANS TO SAY.

QUESTION 2: A Google search on the error produced one match that was VAGUELY related and recomended that I restart the server. It turns out that restarting the server has not been done for a long time BTW. So I did that and they will see if the problem reoccurs; ie it is intermittent so it could be a day or 2  before we know FOR SURE if this fixed it or not.

DO YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS OTHER THAN REBOOTING THE SERVER noting that 3 of the 4 PCs sharing this file do NOT have this problem and furthermore the 4th PC which now has the problem did NOT have the problem before last Friday and also no changes occured that would relate to Outlook (or firewalls) **SHORTLY** before last Friday.

Regards,
  Mike

Answer : Solve "Outlook.pst could not be accessed because another workstation has modified it" error

This is not a supported configuration, and the fact that 3 users are working without any problems is amazing. (BTW, even having the PST file on a server isn't a supported configuration - cf http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297019/en-us)

For my customers who want to do something like this, I recommend MAPILAB Groupware Server - http://www.mapilab.com/groupware/server/?ga