Outlook 2002 - New contact not visible when creating new message

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SD 22 1966 - 02 Apr 2007 19:18 GMT

I recently added a new contact to a contact folder. If I open the contact and
click on "New Message to Contact," a new message form opens with the contact
in the "To" field -- everything seems to work correctly.

However, if the Inbox is displayed and I click on "New Message," a problem
occurs. When I click "To.." in the new message form and select the contact
folder (where the new contact was added) in the "Show Names from the:" field,
the new contact does not appear in the list of entries.

When I first noticed this, I tried "Detect and Repair," as well as
"Scanpst.exe."
Neither detected a problem.

Does anyone have a suggestion?

Thanks.

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Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] - 02 Apr 2007 22:09 GMT

The most common reason for this behavior is that you added the Contact to a
folder other than the one you are displaying in the address book view.

Signature

Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

>I recently added a new contact to a contact folder. If I open the contact
>and
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
>
> Thanks.

Reply to this Message

SD 22 1966 - 02 Apr 2007 23:34 GMT

It's a little more mysterious than that. Here's another oddity. I
right-clicked on the contact folder and selected "Properties." In the tab
"Outlook Address Book," I checked "Show this folder as an e-mail address
book."

I then opened a new message form and clicked on "To.." to select an address.
In the list of contact folders ("Show Names from the:"), the name of the
problem contact folder now appears twice. When I select one of these, the
added contact does NOT appear. When I select the other contact folder with
the same name, the added contact DOES appear.

It seems as if there are two versions of each contact folder. Any further
suggestions?

> The most common reason for this behavior is that you added the Contact to a
> folder other than the one you are displaying in the address book view.
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
> >
> > Thanks.

Reply to this Message

Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] - 03 Apr 2007 00:06 GMT

Aha. Sooner or later, when we're really lucky, the relevant information to
answer a question actually trickles in. For reasons only you can discern,
your Outlook Address Book contains both valid and invalid references to
Contacts Folders. Most likely, you have updated your Outlook version or
migrated your Outlook data incorrectly. The problem is easy to fix. Remove
any invalid references to Contacts Folders here:
Tools > E-mail accounts > View or change existing directories or address
books > Outlook Address Book > Change.

Signature

Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

> It's a little more mysterious than that. Here's another oddity. I
> right-clicked on the contact folder and selected "Properties." In the tab
[quoted text clipped - 36 lines]
>> >
>> > Thanks.

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SD 22 1966 - 03 Apr 2007 00:32 GMT

That didn't help. nothing anomalous appeared. However, I discovered that new
folders do not exhibit this behavior. When I added a contact folder, I could
copy the contacts from another folder into it, and the new one appears to
function correctly.

For some reason, the contact folders with this problem do not have "Show
this folder as an e-mail Address Book" checked under Properties. When you
check this box, you can then use your procedure and find that two contact
folders with the same name now exist. I could use your procedure to remove
the goofy one, except that I cannot tell which one is faulty. I guess the
question is, "How did the "Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book" box
get unchecked to begin with. Magic, I suppose.

> Aha. Sooner or later, when we're really lucky, the relevant information to
> answer a question actually trickles in. For reasons only you can discern,
[quoted text clipped - 44 lines]
> >> >
> >> > Thanks.

Reply to this Message

Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] - 03 Apr 2007 01:10 GMT

Not magic. End user error.
New Contact Folders do not have the "show as email address book" property by
default. Contact Folders that are transferred incorrectly also do not
inherit that property.
I see nothing here that is not "behavior as designed."

Signature

Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

> That didn't help. nothing anomalous appeared. However, I discovered that
> new
[quoted text clipped - 69 lines]
>> >> >
>> >> > Thanks.

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SD 22 1966 - 03 Apr 2007 02:26 GMT

Is it possible to create a new Contacts folder (and subfolders) to replace
the existing one, copy the entries from the existing one into the new, remove
the old Contacts folder and cause Outlook to refer to the new one? If so, is
there a web page I could access for instructions?

Thanks.

> Not magic. End user error.
> New Contact Folders do not have the "show as email address book" property by
[quoted text clipped - 74 lines]
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Thanks.

Reply to this Message

Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] - 03 Apr 2007 02:31 GMT

You can replace any Contact Folder except the default.

Signature

Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

> Is it possible to create a new Contacts folder (and subfolders) to replace
> the existing one, copy the entries from the existing one into the new,
[quoted text clipped - 106 lines]
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > Thanks.

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