I reinstalled the OS (Vista) and applications on my PC, including Outlook. I
normally use Exchange, but it is down on my home server (and will be down for
quite a while); I have been in offline mode for a couple of months. My
problem is that I can't access my mail items in my old "Outlook.ost" file,
and I need them badly.

I did the following:
1) Copied my Outlook.ost file to my new Outlook folder where the pst and ost
files belong
2) Set up Outlook to use Exchange (even though Exchange is down)
3) Went into offline mode. It created an empty outlook0.ost file
4) Quit Outlook
4) Renamed to the outlook0.ost file to something else, and my old
Outlook.ost file to outlook0.ost
5) Started Outlook again, and told Outlook to set up my Exchange account to
manually check for the Exchange server status, so that I can go into offline
mode automatically
6) Quit and re-started Outook

Unfortunately, when I start Outlook, it doens't put me into offline mode,
and even if I do it from the "work offline" menu item, I can't access my .ost
file folders. Outlook just beeps if I try to expand the folder.

The "scanost" utility doens't help, because it just is a re-synchronization
tool.

Is there ANYWAY I can retrieve the information from the .ost file, assuming
that Exchange will continue to be down? Or do I have to go to the work
(quite substantial) to repairing the Exchange setup on my server?

Thanks in advance.