In OL 2003 (and 2000 as well) I am having a problem sorting (actually,
viewing) contacts by location.  For example, I know the person I want to
find is in MN but I can't recall his name.  So I change the Contacts view
from the usual Address Cards to By Location. The problem is that I have a
number of Contacts in that state (actually 5).  They end up in two different
groups.  If I customize the view to Country then State, I get two sets of
Contacts where the Country is none (I usually try to leave the country blank
when I enter a Contact's information is the person is in the US, to avoid
always getting "United States of America" every time I use AddressLayout or
a macro).  There is a group of Contacts in MN in each: One group has 4 of
the 5 Contacts and the other has the 5th.  Two of the contacts work at the
same firm, with the address for each being identical as far as I can tell
(one is the other's assistant!).  The assistant is in a different group from
the boss, who is the sole MN Contact in one of the groups.

If I change the View to display by State, and then Office Location (there is
no field for city or town), all 5 MN contacts show up under MN, but they are
broken into two groups by Office Location (both groups show up as "none"
which makes no sense since every contact has a full mailing address in
Minneapolis MN).  If I get rid of Office Location and just group by State,
all 5 MN Contacts show up together.

Not exactly the world's greatest problem in Outlook, but I can't understand
why people who certainly ought to be grouped together are not.  And how
there be two versions of "Country" when the country is left blank?

Joe McGuire
mcguirejw@comcast.net