Outlook message store has reached its maximum size

Hi,

I'm having problems with Outlook 2007 and would appreciate some help. I'm running it on Vista.

1. I keep getting error messages:

'The message store has reached its maximum size. To reduce...'
(When trying to download my emails to Outlook.)

or

'The file ...\outlook.pst has reached its maximum size. To reduce ...'
(When trying to copy an email to another file.)

I have a number of email addresses and get a large number of emails daily.

I've generally been getting these error messages about once a month. Ususally I just need to archive anything over about two months old and the problem is fixed until the following month. But not this time!

I've tried archiving more recent emails, and more recent still - it's now as recent as the end of March - AND I've deleted a largeish number of emails that wouldn't archive because I'd marked them for follow-up.

Neither action has solved the problem this time.

I've run the repair function from the Office discs twice, to no avail.

I found this article at the Microsoft site:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832925/en-us

which discusses increasing the mailbox size via the windows registry.

In the section just above “MORE INFORMATION”, it mentions the registry entries that I should have.

Strangely, I didn’t have either of the entries mentioned.

In the “MORE INFORMATION” section there’s a section that talks about “may have to create the registry values if they do not exist”

I followed the instructions, but when it came to entering the value data, I wasn’t sure which of the data from the tables further up the page I should put in.

First it asked if I wanted to set it a s decimal or hexadecimal, I have tried both, but is now back at default (hex).

I tried the e.g. 0x00005000 value but the text box would cut off the last two digits. I tried the size (e.g. 51,200) without the comma (e.g. 51200), but that didn’t seem to work.

In the section just above “MORE INFORMATION” it also says about “The user preference location for the registry entries is located …”

I had to create that path in the registry too, but don’t know what to put into it.

I've also deleted a lot of files from my C drive, thinking that low space there may be effecting the PST size. I freed up about another 60GB, but no help.

2. Another annoying problem is that when I try to delete old folders within Outlook (to help reduce the file size, it says:

'Cannot delete this folder. Right-click the folder, and then click Properties to check your permissions for the folder. See the folder owner or your administrator to change your permissions. The folder is full.'

Firstly, the folder is empty, not full.

Secondly, when I check the Properties I cannot see access any section that has to do with permissions, let alone change them. How do I do that?

Can anyone give some guidance and advice on either of these issues? (Preferably before I tear out all my hair and/or throw the pc through my window.)

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Michael