Can I open Outlook PST files read-only?

In this excerpt from
Answercast #22, I offer a solution for backing up archived .pst files that
will keep Outlook from opening them.

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Is there a solution?

The short answer is no, not that I’m aware of.

The workaround you might consider would be to throw those .pst files on a different drive that’s not backed up. So that they become separate from your backup collection.

That’s what I happen to do. And the reason I know this is because I experience exactly the same thing.

Move the archive files

I actually have my .pst files out on a storage device on my network. Even accessing them remotely touches the file in such a way that it appears to have been updated: the file actually has changed. This is a side effect (as I understand it) of the way that Outlook works. It actually updates information in the file, even if all you do is look at it. So much so… that it is not possible, as I understand it, to open a .pst file that is on read-only media.

So, if you have a .pst file on a read-only fileshare or you write a .pst file to a CD- or DVD-ROM, then you can’t actually open it from that media. You have to copy to your hard disk before Outlook will actually open the file.

It’s unfortunate. I’m not aware of a way to open the file read-only. I wish there were one. I would use it myself. So, like I said, the best solution that I can really think of is to just move the archive .pst files to a different drive that is not part of your backup.