Error code 0x80040116 in Outlook 2007

When trying to click 'Settings' on a PST file in Outlook 2007 (File > Data File Management) I kept getting an error code 0x80040116.

I had the problem with both my Archive PST file as well as the main Personal Folders PST file. I was able to resolve the problem with Archive PST by just closing and re-opening the Archive Folders i.e. right click 'Archive Folders' and then select 'Close Archive Folders'. Then go to File > Data File Management and click 'Add' and add the 'Archive.pst' file (or whatever its called on your system) back to Outlook. You can use this method for other PST files too (except for the main Personal Folders outlook.pst file - which you cannot 'close').

For the Personal Folders PST file the procedure is as follows.

1. Click File > Data File Management and then click "Open Folder" to open the folder where Outlook stores the data files. Keep this Explorer window open.

2. Exit from Outlook.

3. On the Explorer window that you opened in the first step you'll see a file called 'outlook.pst' and this is the main Personal Folders PST file (at least all systems I've seen so far always call it 'outlook.pst').

4. Now copy and paste this outlook.pst file to some other folder (lets say you put it on your desktop and rename it to outlook1.pst). And just to be sure you have a backup, copy and paste the outlook.pst again to another folder too! This process may take a while especially if you have a large PST file.

5. Now open Outlook and delete all of the folders you have under 'Personal Folders' (yes go ahead and do it!). You should be able to delete all of them except for the system folders such as Deleted Items, Drafts, Inbox, Junk E-mail, Outbox, RSS feeds, Sent Items and Search Folders.

6. Now empty the deleted items by clicking 'Tools' and then 'Empty Deleted Items folder'.

7. Next open the copy of outlook.pst (i.e. the outlook1.pst file from step 4) by going File > Data File Management and then clicking 'Add'.

8. Outlook will now open one more 'Personal Folders' folder. This would have all of the email etc that you originally had in the main Personal Folders.

9. Now just drag and drop the folders and email back into the main Personal Folders folder (the one at the top). E.g. email in the Inbox of the second Personal Folders folder goes into the Inbox of the Personal Folders at the top, email in the Sent Items of the second Personal Folders goes into the Sent Items of the one at the top, folders in the second Personal Folders go into the first Personal Folders and so on.

10. Once that is over close the second Personal Folders (the outlook1.pst one) by right clicking it and selecting 'Close Personal Folders'.

11. You can now go to File > Data File Management and click 'Settings' on your Personal Folders and see the Settings dialog.

**MANDATORY WARNING** You're playing with your email here, so be extra careful! You don't want to delete hundreds of years of stored messages in one click!

** NOTE ** I am assuming you don't have an MS Exchange connection from your Outlook or any similar fancy stuff. If you do then the above procedure may not work for you. I don't use an Exchange server so I don't know if the procedure works in such cases.