Environment Variables: XP PRO on a 2003 domain, Roaming profiles, Outlook PST in “My Documents” not in the standard local settings.

On a recent site visit we had a clients computer hanging on “Loading your personal settings” for 5-10 minuites and crashing the system when logging out.  We initially thought this was a profile related issue or DNS so we did the usual Remove from domain –> Join domain –> check all DNS and machine settings, spyware, virus, disk space etc… Out of luck we noticed that the profile had grown 10 times it size and upon further investigation we found Prf*.tmp files in the same folder as the Outlook.pst file, all 10 .tmp files where the same size as the original PST file.  Upon further investigation we found in the error logs pointing us to the microsoft KB article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328607

Basically the fix here is one of two things.  Disable Shared folder caching or move the PST file back into a folder that does not sync with the roaming profile.

To disable shared folder caching:

1. Right-click the folder for which you want to disable caching, and select Properties.
2. On the Sharing tab, click the Caching button.
3. Deselect the Allow Caching Of Files In This Shared Folder option, and click OK.
4. Close the Properties dialog box.

Article written by MyComputerAid.com