Is Entourage safe?

[Bill Cheeseman]

A provocative question, but I've wondered for a long time whether it is safe
to entrust my personal information to Entourage. At the moment, I think not.

Entourage's architecture requires that I put all my calendar, address book
and email data into about three files, in the "Main Identity" folder of the
"Microsoft User Data" folder, in a standard setup. For a heavy user, such as
me, the Main Identity folder can grow to 150 MB or more in size. Adding even
a single address, appointment, or email message updates one of these files.
As a result, Retrospect or a similar backup utility must duplicate the
entire file in question -- 50 or 75 MB, perhaps -- every time it does an
incremental backup, instead of just adding the several email messages or
appointments that have been added to the program since the last backup. This
discourages backups, big time. I asked the Microsoft presenters about this
in the Entourage session at MacWorld Expo in January, and they acknowledged
that there is no way to do incremental backups of the last few additions to
the files.

So, now, there's something wrong with one of my Entourage files. I can work
with the files just fine in Entourage, but I can't make any backups or
copies whatsoever. If I use my standard Retrospect backup script, about half
way into it my hard disk starts making weird noises, the machine locks up,
and I must do a hard restart. If I try to duplicate the files in the Finder
or copy them to another folder, I get the same noise and the same lockup.
The scariest thing is that when I do an Option-Launch on Entourage, to
rebuild the files, I get the same noise and the same lockup. In other words,
I cannot back up my Entourage data in any way, and I am utterly reliant on a
file I know to be corrupt.

The only cure I can think of is to find or write an AppleScript to pull all
the data out of my Entourage files, one record at a time, into FileMaker Pro
or whatever. If I have to do that, you can bet that I will not bring them
back into another Entourage file. I will instead find some other program or
programs in which I can design a more workable backup and rescue system.

Am I overlooking something? I sure hope so. Can anybody give me any help
with this problem?

--

Bill Cheeseman - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Quechee Software, Quechee, Vermont, USA

The AppleScript Sourcebook - www.AppleScriptSourcebook.com
Vermont Recipes - www.stepwise.com/Articles/VermontRecipes


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