Question : Losing connection to Outlook pst files

I saw an answered question with same title.

I'm experiencing the same problems.  The suggested answer is a workaround which does not prevent this from reoccurring.

Here's the env:
Client: W2K pro SP4, Outlook 2000 SP1
Exchange: 5.5 SP4 on NT 4 sp6
PST files were located on NT 4 SP4 server, which was recently upgraded with Win2k3 SP1.

Before file server upgrade = no problem.
Since upgrade, users randomly loose access to PST files.    

Right now, this affects about 60 users.  Numbers grow everyday.
Symptoms:  PST stop working during day, sometimes cannot expand folder view, sometimes cannot access message.  Sometime closing Outlook is sufficient, sometimes a restart is required, sometimes the pst must be removed/added from Outlook profile.  Sometime, must close open file from server before reattaching.  I can fix the problems, but this keep reoccurring.

PST's comes out clear from a scanpst and are well under 2GB.

From troubleshhoting done so far:  
Outlooks open the pst with a lock, after an idle period, (30mn is the default for Outlook 2k) it releases the lock.  On subsequent access, it tries to reestablish the lock, but it cannot.
Either Outlook does not properly releases the lock in the first place or another process locks it.
When this happens, the outlook profile seems to sometimes get corrupted, required removing\adding of pst service.

I cannot track any server process that might lock these pst. (using sysinternals Process Explorer).   There's no backup running before problems, I tried disabling Antivirus software.  Server with PST is a dedicated file\print server with no funky software installed (OS, Antivirus and backup util. only).

I know PST are not supported by Microsoft over LAN, but we are stuck with them for now.

I read a few articles about oplocks possibly giving hard time to PST's.  Tried to disable that without success.

We cannot continously be closing the files manually on server so user can get back in.
I'm running out of ideas as where to look.  Any suggestion would be appreciated.  

Answer : Losing connection to Outlook pst files

You know what the best thing for you to do is use a free program called SyncBack where it will allow you to back up files from your machine locally to your server.  Even if it is in use, just like Shadow Copy.  Keep in mind that when Outlook is opened that there is a continues network connection to the server and if network traffic is bad you will get disconnects.  It always helps to have a backup of your PST files on the server incase a computer get corrupted or someone looses their laptops.  That would be the route that I would take.  And you can set SyncBack to update the backup based on when you like it to be scheduled.  It's a niffy product, here is the URL
http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html

Good Luck