Scanpst.exe, commonly known as Inbox Repair Tool, is found in your Microsoft Office suite by default. The default path of scanpst.exe is “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12” in Microsoft Office 2007. The locations may differ according to versions of Office suite and operating systems. But the working of scanpst.exe is the same in all the versions. The scanpst.exe is developed with the intention to help the corporate Outlook users, where people need a defensive tool to save their data on major disaster.
What is it?
The inbox repair tool is built for repairing .pst, .ost files and to resize the oversized PST. The tool used to repair .pst is called “scanpst.exe” and the tool used to repair .ost is called “scanost.exe”. The .ost is called offline storage table it manages the offline Outlook data. But eventually it’s not in use nowadays as the Microsoft corp. itself stopped the support to repair damage in offline Outlook data. Because if there is damage in offline Outlook data it is better to delete the .ost file and re-download it from the Microsoft exchange server. It will be more efficient. Even if the Microsoft exchange server fails you can import the .pst to .ost easily.
What scanpst.exe does?
The .pst file is responsible for all the data and settings stored in the Outlook program. PST stands for personnel storage information. In Outlook you can maintain more than one .pst file. Here all the data are stored in the form of rows, columns and tables. The actual problem rises when the .pst file is damaged or corrupted. There are several reasons that make the .pst file corrupt. This is the place where there is a need for inbox repair tool occurs.
You can use inbox repair tool to repair your Outlook PST file at times of corruption or damage, which resulted to inaccessibility to your Outlook profile.
Positives of Inbox repair tool
- It can restore .pst file from personnel folder corruption which blocks the entire Outlook program while opening
- A backup option is provided at the time of repairing PST files which will save the same backup file in .bak format along with .pst file
- The tool will work perfectly in repairing 97-2002 .pst data files in MS Outlook 2003 and 2007
- It restructures the damaged default personnel storage table row by row. This will ignore the unwanted attributes ultimately
The scanpst.exe mends the corrupted PST file but it is a more complex task which requires some technical knowledge to find where the tool is located in your system and also it’s up to the user to find the actual .pst location and repair it manually. It is not finished with this, after successful repair you have to import the recovered and modified attributes to the new PST file.
Since, it’s a free tool which comes with the MS Office package, so there is no harm in trying it once. But the individual has to be very cautious and must take a backup of PST file first. Because of the below mentioned reasons.
Limitations of Inbox repair tool
As it’s said “A drop of poison is enough to spoil the entire milk”, here it suits perfectly. Though the inbox repair tool comes with Microsoft office suite, it is not up to the mark. There are several areas where the Scanpst.exe lacks behind…
- Lot of manual effort is required which requires more technical knowledge
- The major drawback is the tool cannot repair oversized PST. Each attribute in Outlook profile can hold data only up to 2 GB. After that, MS Outlook will show error message and will never open. Outlook program will work properly only after successful repair of .pst file
- If you forget to check the option “Make backup of scanned file before repairing” and unfortunately if the repair process crashes or failed due to some reasons, then it’s a major disaster
- You have to find the location of the PST file manually and by default it will be in hidden mode
- The backup file generated by the tool is not the duplication of the original one. Only the major things like the header and the Meta information about the actual .pst is replicated. It repairs only the header of the damaged PST file, rather than the entire file
- Moreover if damage to the PST file is severe, the scanpst.exe fails
Hence, I guess Inbox Repair Tool will be helpful only in minor corruptions of PST file.
As you saw, there are some advantages; but the drawback explodes out of the bag. So it is better to use any eminent third party software to repair the corrupted PST files that have some advantages like scanning and picking the available PST automatically, repair the PST file from severe issues including virus attacks, attachment failure problem, etc. One of the tools which I found best is Remo Repair Outlook PST, which fixes the PST file completely unlike scanpst.exe tool.
I was able to get a lot of information from your blog and I appreciate it all. You did a great job on this post and the way you set it up was really attractive to the eye as soon as you open it up. The information that you provided is awesome and will be very helpful when I go to do some software restoration.
The only problem I have with this is that if I try to fix anything, anything at all, something happens and I end up ruin it all together. I appreciate that you have this type of thing out there but I really am not comfortable trying this myself. Keep up the good work I look forward to seeing the comments from the other people out there.
I did not know that scanpst executable file was just another way of referring to the built in inbox repair tool. It doesn’t surprise me that Microsoft changed their policy about what this .exe file covers. They are always tweaking and testing. Sometimes, they decide on a new protocol and it angers the many users. This happens quite often. With all that said, I say that the new Outlook is better than ever. I commend them for improving it.
I have heard about this before but was not really looking to use it because frankly I wasn’t sure it would work. You know how people are all the time pushing stuff that they say is better than the rest and you should use theirs period because it works better than the other products? That is what this sounded like to me but my friend says it really works.
I have noticed that whenever your hardware fails in storing or transferring the data of your Outlook PST files, the PST files will likely get corrupted. The most common is this type: Data Storage Device Failure. For example, if your hard disk has some bad sectors and your Outlook PST file is stored on these sectors. Then maybe you can only read part of the PST file. Or the data you read are incorrect and full of errors.
You have had a lot of good information out here in the past week or so about softwares and things to make our lives easier when it comes to our computers. I can tell that you like what you do and you know what you are doing as well. You have done some really great blog posts that not only look great but have helpful content, great job.
Thank you for the help that you are giving people on this stuff, the more stuff that comes out on smart phones and computers the more information you will have that you need to make them work properly. These kinds of posts are great when you are trying to learn how to use this stuff and there are a lot of us out there that need the help because we are out of touch.