Posting here since it doesn't appear to fit anywhere else.

I'm running Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy, VMWare Workstation 5.5 and Windoze XP as a guest.

I'm storing my Mickysoft Outlook mailfolders on the linux partition. After about 30 minutes of running, I will get an error from outlook when I try to access the PST folder that "The file h:\foo\bar\blah.pst could not be accessed because another workstation has modified it. Please close all mail stuff and restart because I suck."

Nothing on the linux side is "modifying" it so I can't imagine why Outlook is giving that error. I've seen similar complaints from users using Samba and Netware but no fixes.

Any theories here?

A Microsoft mechanism to keep you from using other file systems?

Anyway, was anything running around that time? I do mean anything, Outlook might have noticed the access time on the file changed and decided to error out, or for some other similar reason it thought it was modified. Viruses scanners? anything? Since you insist that nothing was modifying it, i will assume Outlook is noticing that something about the file is off (compared to what it would expect on a Windows file system), and i say its because a virus/malware scanner touched the file causing the access times to change, that or its because Outlook touched the file causing the access times to change. Hey, you wanted theories, and im only guessing.

Not a bad theory. I'd jump all over it except that if this were characteristic of a typical user (everyone here has virus scan) then all of the other users would be getting this.

I'm pretty sure this is a side effect of keeping the file on a different filesystem (or OS)

When you install Windows using VMWare, do you not create a virtual partition in which you then create a Windows file system?

This said, I do not see how the type of file system is relevant. Windows is not suppossed to be able to access Linux filessystems at all--not just after 30 minutes.

I would try putting the Outlook files in a Windows folder within the virtual environment. Better yet, use Thunderbird. It is cross-platform and there are surely import utilities to bring in Outlook files.

Well, I could do that.. and may have to for a real resolution. I wanted to keep it on linux because I allocated a great deal more disk to the linux system than the virtual. Also, I figured the data would be easier to backup and restore.

I wish I could use Thunderbird. I need Outlook for the meeting/scheduling stuff though. I'm already pushing the limits of corporate social acceptance by being an IT manager that uses Linux for a Desktop.