- PST Walker Review -

Nothing brings out the worst in proprietary formats than email.

Think about it.

Is it easy to backup or copy emails from home to work?
Is it easy to transfer my mail from one email program to another?
Where does all your email information go?

Wouldn't you like to save your old email data and be able to read it without having to install all that old junk on a new email setup?

Sorry, with Outlook, you can't - until now.

PST Walker provides an amazing solution to many of your email problems by allowing you to read information directly from .pst and .ost files without having Outlook or MAPI installed.

Want to save your Outlook email from work but don't use Outlook at home? Copy the .pst or .ost file, bring it home and read it with PST Walker.

Want to transfer your emails from Outlook to Thunderbird? Don't bother with the snake dance of data conversion; just save the pst file and use PST Walker to read it. ALL of your Outlook data, such as contacts, email and calendar information can be read.

Are you using Exchange Server and want a copy of your email that's portable and accessible? Just create and copy an ost file and all your information is there.

Worried about losing important information if your hard disc drive fails? Just save your .pst file to a remote location. PST Walker allow you to everything on the file.

Although it is very easy to use, you may want to download PST Walker to follow along. This evaluation version is limited to showing only the first two fields in each email folder.

PST Walker also requires Microsoft's .NET Framework 2.0 to be installed on your PC. You can download the .NET Framework and install it easily.

There are a growing number of programs that use need the .NET Framework to run but, for some odd reason, it was never pre-installed with Windows XP. Microsoft recommends you have Service Pack 2 installed with XP to use .NET Framework 2.0.
To find out if you have Service Pack 2 installed, right click on your My Computer icon, click properties, and which version of Windows and what Service Pack you have are listed under the System heading on the General Tab.

Vista users should have no problem since the .NET Framework is pre-installed.


Basic Functions

After installing PST Walker, locate a .pst or .ost file on the HDD of your PC. If you are currently using Outlook, copy the .pst file and paste it to another location. Have PST Walker look at the copy so there won't be any conflicts with Outlook.

You have two options when opening a file: "Like Outlook" and "Full Scan". The full scan option will allow you to recover data from a damaged .pst file but takes longer to load depending on file size. Try both options and compare.

When the .pst file opens, you'll think you're looking at your email program! All of your contact information, email files and folder, and calendar information is present.



If you want to view several emails at once in separate windows, select several messages and click "Selected Items" from the View tab on the menu. Numerous messages can be selected using the standard ctrl-left click and shift-left click commands.

PST Walker also lets you save any attachments that are on your emails. Select the email of your choice that has an attachment you wish to save, and select "Save Attachments" from the "File" menu button.


Search Function

Having all of your email available isn't really worthwhile if you can't find what you want. Fortunately, PST Walker has a great search function.

Select "Find" under the "Tools" menu selection to bring up the search box.



Enter the information you want in the search box and click. In the example used below, 1st Yellow, was used in the search field. In case you're curious, 1st Yellow is the name of a now defunct web site that was blocked by many spam filters.



After the search is performed, only matching entries are displayed.



Select "Clear" to clear the search results and show the contents of the entire folder.


View Properties

PST Walker also allows you to view the metadata and Outlook properties of your email and folders. Select the "View" menu button to reveal the other options and select the appropriate one.



Metadata and Outlook properties are displayed in a pop up window.


Conclusion and Registration

There are times when you absolutely HAVE to get some information from your email.

It all works fine when you're dealing with one email program in one location but all sorts of problems happen when you get away from that setup. Your options start to deteriorate if you have email at different locations and are different versions and they really hit the skids if you're using different email programs. Transferring mail often involves a snake dance of compression to Outlook to Outlook Express to whatever with each step being very time consuming and just aching to crash!

As you can see, PST Walker solves some major problems in a simple way. Download PST Walker and stop letting your email control you.

You can download the trial version or register it by clicking on the appropriate button below. I hope you find the program useful and would like to hear your comments at




- Dave -