“Strange that a supposed IT guy doesn’t know how to do this, and doesn’t have private resources to help.”
I don’t know... I work with a lot of young IT people (less that 5-8 years on the job), and most don’t have a clue on how to troubleshoot problems, search the internet for clues and solutions, or how to read and search vendor documentation. Nor do most have much intellectual curiosity to try and devise a solution by “out-of-the-box” thinking if they cannot find a canned solution to their exact problem.
It is a shame that a lot of these people cannot do the simplest thing with out step-by-step instructions. But, it keeps old, experienced people like me gainfully employed...
Glad to hear you can profit from their lazy ineptitude. I am not an IT guy but can think of a couple different ways to do this using word processing or spreadsheet software. But aren’t there already specialized software in place for doing exactly this? I gotta believe that the litigation industry already has software designed to strip out email addresses from an outlook file without even having to opening it up. The numbers of document demands in lawsuits each year has got to be dizzyingly high, so too the need to redact names or other trade secret info quickly to comply with subpoenas. I suppose I could google it to find out lol but if none exists, there is a business idea for you :-)