OL97: Reasons Outlook May Access the Floppy Drive

This article describes some of the reasons Microsoft Outlook may appear to unnecessarily access the floppy disk drive.

There are several reasons Outlook may try to access the floppy disk drive:

• To access a personal folder
• To save archive information
• To access a reminders sound file
• WordMail may be searching for a template on the drive.
• Journaling Office documents opened from diskette

Outlook May Need to Access a Personal Folder on the Drive

To check the location of your personal folders, follow these steps:

1. On the Outlook Tools Menu, click Services.
2. Click to select Personal Folders, and then click Properties.
3. Verify the path to the personal folder.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 for each personal folder.

Personal folders can have different names. For example, "my archive" or even a blank name that uses a space character are valid file names. To be certain you are checking the path of every personal folder in your messaging profile, look at the Properties for each personal folder listed on the Services Tab.

Outlook May Attempt to Archive Information to the Drive

To check the location of the archive folder, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. Click the AutoArchive Tab.
3. Check the path to the Default Archive File.

Reminders May Need to Access a Sound File on the Drive

To check the location of the sound file, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools Menu, click Options.
2. Click the Reminders Tab.
3. Check the path for Play Reminder Sound.

WordMail May Need a Template on the Drive

To check the location of the template, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools Menu, click Options.
2. Click the E-mail Tab.
3. If the "Use Microsoft Word as the e-mail editor" check box is selected, then check the path to the template. Click Template to check the location of the template.

Office Files May Have Been Opened From a Diskette

You may have opened files from other Office applications such as Word or Excel while Journaling is on for those program activities. To stop Outlook from accessing the floppy disk drive, follow these steps:

1. Click the Tools menu and then click Options.
2. On the Preferences tab, click Journal Options.
3. In Journaling Otions, click to remove the check mark next to the Office applications in the Also Record Files From list.
4. Click OK and OK again to save the changes.

When you restart Outlook after deactivating Journaling for Office documents, you can then reactivate the feature.

NOTE: Due to the advanced file handling techniques employed with the Office family of applications, it is not recommended that you routinely open and save Office documents using diskettes.