Maximum size - contact attachments and custom fields
 

Hi,

Using Outlook 2003 with Exchange Server. We will use a custom form for
contacts (hopefully stored in public folder) and I have a few questions that
I'd appreciate help with (possibly pointing to a good source as I imagine
there might be a reference with it all on somewhere). It is difficult to
always scope something like this up front but I'd imagine it eventually
getting to about 8 - 10000 contacts before significant software / hardware
upgrades.

Does anyone know the maximum recommended size of files that can be attached
to a contact form? Is it a practical hardware issue (ie it will be slow but
work) or are there real limits? I think Vince has mentioned something like a
2Gb total .pst limit (which ignoring other data averages to 200kb per contact
for 10000 contacts) but my real concern is the workable limit per contact
(especially if we have a couple of pictures of them which could have
filesizes of about 1Mb each).

Do you know if Outlook tries to load much of this sort of information (I'm
really thinking picture here) in advance or only when you're trying to access
the particular record (as if it does it in advance that could lead to
problems quite quickly!!)

Likewise, Sue has mentioned not liking more than 150 - 200 fields. I hope
that we'd stay within that by using keyword fields (with, say, list box
controls on the form) for categorisation of contacts but there might be some
that require checkboxes (obviously a field each) which could boost field
count quickly. How much of an issue do you think this is?

Thanks for any help and previous assistance :)
Sam