by David Hakala

Q: I use Windows Outlook 2007 on my Vista Ultimate machine. Can you tell me how to turn off the “synchronizing folders” option in Outlook 2007? Whenever this runs, it really hogs the resources, and I don’t know that this needs to be done as frequently as it is being done. Thanks! – Bill

“Synchronizing folders” simply means that Outlook 2007 is sending and receiving email and RSS messages, updating Internet-based calendars, and other tasks that require communication with other computers on the Internet. Many users complain that Outlook 2007 takes far too long and uses far too many resources for this task. But synchronization is not an “option,” it’s an essential feature. You can’t turn it off permanently or you won’t have any email, RSS feeds, etc. You might as well uninstall Outlook, a solution quite a few people choose in favor of Mozilla Thunderbird or another email client, including an earlier version of Outlook.
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