My first detailed interlinear response to your thoughtfully welcome analysis
was for some technical reason lost when I clicked on the 'Post' button in
Internet Explorer. So it has not been posted. I then successfully posted a
second response, differently written, which has been posted. I will now
attempt to re-create the first response, which addresses in detail the points
in your previous message; please see my interlinear comments below:


"Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]" wrote:

"Learner" wrote in message
...

I just don't understand the logic
of why it's selecting those 3,000 files to be displayed in the reminders
window.

Sorry, but I don't follow. The Reminder window displays reminders, not
file.

Yes, I should have written "messages', not 'files'.


Could this be due to a faulty upgrade? The older PST files were created
on
Outlook 2003 on my older computer. But my old copy of Office 2003 refused
to
install on my new computer,

Define "refused". Outlook 2003 will install on any PC running Windows 2000,
XP, or Vista, I believe.

It rejected the 42 digit product key when I inserted that twice in the
require places at the start of the installation procedure. I assumed it was
I had already installed this disk on at least two other computers previously.



So the PST files created on Outlook 2003 were being used in Outlook 2002
before the upgrade to Office 2007.

Possible only if you created an Outlook 97-2002 format PST. The format used
natively by OL 200 and 2007 will not work on OL 2002.

Could that omission of Outlook 2003 from
the upgrade process have caused some defect in the default PST file which
makes it behave this way in Outlook 2007?

Not likely, in my opinion.

Good; I'll rely on your expert opinion, and downgrade that possibility when
trying to resolve the problem.



My work efficiency in Outlook has dropped like the stock market during the
last week, because of this reminders problem.

You say you clicked the X in the upper right of the reminders window, but
did you click Dismiss All?

Sure did, but after clicking on 'dismiss all' the reminder window doesn't
disappear at all; doing that simply sends the reminders program into furious
activity as the displayed 'overtime' numbers are rewritten, so that the
hour-glass hangs for several minutes. The snooze time can't be reset to any
option except the default 5 minutes.



Also, you didn't say what is preventing you from recreating your folder
structure and redefining the rules. Reminders fire only from items in the
default folders, so if you have a complex folder structure, none of the
folders you created yourself can contain reminders that show up.

I suppose you mean manually recreating the folder structure and rule
definitions. Yes, I could do that, and if all else fails I suppose I will at
some point resort to that. However, it will be VERY time consuming, so I
would rather find some way to 'introduce' into the default PST (whether by
copying, or importing, or installing as default PST, or whatever means) that
folder structure and that set of several dozen rules automatically, in one or
two actions, doing that would not also 'introduce' this monstrous activity of
the reminders program.

I have tried configuring this old, large PST as the default, and the result
is that the reminders, which lay dormant when the file was non-default, have
become relentlessly active. I've repeatedly run the 'cleanreminders' switch,
apparently to no effect. So I have now returned this PST to a non-default
status, but the reminders still continue, maybe due to having been first
generated when it was the default personal folders file.

The file in question, as shown on the drive, is 1.500kb in size, according
to Windows Explorer. Outlook's Properties / Folder Size function also showed
about the same size, until I removed about 500kb of old messages, by running
the export function and creating a new PST file. So Outlook's Properties /
Folder Size function shows the mother folder size as now reduced to about
950kb; however, in Windows Explorer the same file remains at the size
1,500kb.

I've opened several dozen of the 3,000 messages now shown in the reminders
window, and I note that they all date from no later than 2006. Could the
reminders be a function of the archive program? Is there some configuration
there which I could reset, to remove these reminders?

Many thanks for your help.


Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]