Microsoft Outlook XP - no emails in address book after transfer

[symbolic]

Hello Folk,

Can you help me out :

I transferred my .pst files to a new harddrive and imported it into my new computer in MS Office XP Outlook. However, when I want to send an email, there are no email addresses in my address book (although they are still storedin my Outlook contacts). I literally have to go to my contact and copy/paste the email address everytime I send an email.

Do you know the solution?

Thank you...

 

[TheDiggler]

If you provide some additional information, I may be able to help you. Please do the following:

1) Click the Tools drop down menu, select "E-Mail Accounts..."
2) Select the bottom Directory option: View or change existing directories or address books
3) Click Next >
3) Report what shows up on the next screen. In my OXP installation, I have:
[*]Name: Outlook Address Book
[*]Type: MAPI
4) Click cancel to get back to OXP

5) Click the Tool drop down menu again, select "Address Book..."
6) In the "Show Names from the:" box, report all the available choices in there.
7) In my OXP installation, I have:
[*]Outlook Address Book
[*]Contacts (this is the one that appears in the box BY DEFAULT)

No guarantees; however, with answers to the above, I may be able to direct you on how to fix your address book snafu.

 

[symbolic]

Thank you so much for the careful instructions TheDiggler.

I checked all my settings and they are exactly the same as you have your settings. However, still the same problems of having an empty address book?

Appreciate your wisdom on this

 

[TheDiggler]

Originally posted by: symbolic
Thank you so much for the careful instructions TheDiggler.

I checked all my settings and they are exactly the same as you have your settings. However, still the same problems of having an empty address book?

Appreciate your wisdom on this

I forgot to mention in my previous post that my Windows Address Book is also empty; however, Outlook XP uses my Contacts as its address book.

With the above said...

When you open up your Address Book (Tools --> Address Book ...), is "Contacts" in fact the option that shows up by default in the "Show Names from the:" drop-down box?

If "Contacts" is the default "Show Names from the:" option:
You should see a populated list of addresses (in that Address Book window) from your Outlook Contacts, and those contacts should be usable directly within Outlook e-mails. When composing an e-mail, click on the "To..." label. That should open up the address book that Outlook is using. If it's a populated selectable list of addresses, you do have an available existing populated address book (which means you have a non-issue).

If "Contacts" is not the default "Show Names from the:" option, or if your address book above is still empty:
1) Open up the Address Book window (i.e. from the main Outlook interface, click Tools --> Address Book...)
2) In the small Address Book window click the "Tools" drop down menu and select "Options..."
2) Set the options on the "Addressing" box as follows:
[*]Show this address list first: Contacts
[*]Keep personal addresses in: Contacts
[*]When sending mail, check names using these address lists in the following order: Contacts ("Add.." it if it's not there, "Remove" everything else that is there).

Please let me know if this resolves your Address Book problem.

 

[symbolic]

TheDiggler,

I did look at the Address Book (Tools --> Address Book ...), and "Contacts" is in fact the option that shows up by default.

This problem happened because I deleted my old HD and installed a new HD while keeping the data files (outlook .pst file). Now, when I try to send a new email, the 'TO' box does not automatically fill-in/complete the name or email address that I begin to type. Furthermore, when I click on the 'TO' button to 'Select Names' [ settings is 'Show Names from the: Contacts' ] it is completely blank.

My Outlook/Contacts contains all my contacts with their email.


I hope that this is helpful for some sort of solution/resolvement.

Thank you again for your kind help.

Symbolic

 

[TheDiggler]

Ok, did you go into the "Options..." menu to verify that all those settings were the same too?

In my last message I wrote:

If "Contacts" is not the default "Show Names from the:" option, or if your address book above is still empty:

... and then provided additional instructions for going into the "Options..." menu. If you haven't tried those instructions out yet, please give that a shot and report back.

 

[symbolic]

Yes, I did go through all your instructions. 'Contacts' is the option in the address book and there is only 1 option (contacts) available in the list. :-(

 

[TheDiggler]

Wow... I'm getting low on ideas here.

Try this out:

1) Open up your Address Book (Tools --> Address Book...)
2) Is your address book populated at this point??? (Please let me know)
3) Inside your Address Bookp, open up the Options... settings (Tools --> Options...)
4) In the 3rd section, "When Sending Mail ...," remove the "Contacts" entry. That should empty out the list.
5) Click APPLY then click OK
6) Close the Address Book and re-open it (i.e. Step #1)
7) Is your address book populated now? (Again, let me know)
8) Go back into the Options... settings (i.e. Step #3)
9) If there's nothing populated in the 3rd section (i.e. Step #4), click Add... and add "Contacts"
10) Click APPLY followed by OK

If that still doesn't give you your address book back, I recommend searching the Knowledge Base @ Microsoft's web-site for information. I will in the mean time contact an MCSE friend of mine for further suggestions (if any).

 

[symbolic]

There is NOTHING in my address book (steps 2 & 7). Also, when I delete Contacts in the 3rd section, it automatically adds it again when I close go back to my address book.

 

[TheDiggler]

Click the "Help" drop-down menu and select "Microsoft Outlook Help." When the annoying Clipit cartoon opens up, type in the phrase "Missing address book" and click "Search." A few options should come up including:
[*] Troubleshoot the Address Book
[*] Troubleshoot Contacts

Try going through both of those Wizards to see if you they can resolve your problem.

I'll try and get a hold of my MCSE buddy later today, but in the meantime, please provide me w/ some addtional information:
1) What step(s) did you perform to import your old PST file into your current Outlook XP installation? ("File --> Import" doesn't show me an option which lets you import from an existing .PST file)

2) Just to clarify again, when you go into your Outlook XP Contacts, are there indeed populated CONTACTS with populated E-MAIL ADDRESSES in the E-MAIL ADDRESS fields? (I assume the answer to this is YES as you've indicated that you need to copy/paste from your CONTACTS each time you compose an e-mail).

 

[symbolic]

Ok, I will go through the help menu again (although I looked at it before). In the meanwhile in response to your questions:

1) Under 'File>Data File Management', I added my original .pst file, changed the default to it, and deleted the file that is setup by Outlook on installation. I try to keep my data files on a separate disk partition so as to make reinstalling the OS easier (supposedly).

2) Yes, I have a ton of email addresses in my contacts lists, 'E-mail' data field.

Thanks

 

[TheDiggler]

No luck getting a hold of my friend yet; however, have you by any chance tried REPARING your Outlook XP installation? If you go to Control Panel --> Add/Remove and select Office XP (or Outlook XP if you installed it w/o the full Office Suite), the subsequent window that opens up should have a REPAIR option. Try having it perform a FULL REPAIR/REINSTALL without uninstalling your current setup (this way it'll hopefully retain the fact that you've changed your .PST file from the default to one in another location). Maybe upon re-install the Contacts fed Address Book will work. Just a thought.

 

[symbolic]

I'll give it a try... Graci. Let me know if your friend has any input.

 

[TheDiggler]

I sent my MCSE buddy an e-mail to read this thread. If he has any additional thoughts, he'll email reply me, at which point I'll post the additional info here.

In the meantime, if the repair/re-install works, please let me know!

 

[symbolic]

Tried the Repair - no help :-(

 

[TheDiggler]

Here are some Microsoft Knowledgebase Articles that may provide you with some answers:
[*] 290001 - OL2002: Outlook Address Book Is Missing After You Install Outlook 2002
[*]329920 - OL2002: How to Remove and Reinstall the Outlook Address Book
[*]319901 - OL2002: Error if You Use Your Contacts to Address a New Message
[*]299008 - OL2002: How to Add a Personal Address Book to an Outlook 2002 Profile
[*]291618 - OL2002: How to Copy the Personal Address Book to Another Computer

*EDIT* I got a response from my MCSE friend. He doesn't use the Contacts folder within Outlook, thus he doesn't really have any additional knowledge on this subject. If the above links don't help you, you may need to contact MS (unless somebody else in these forums has a thought).

 

[coolVariable]

Although I can't help you I just want to say what a B*tch transfering Outlook is!!!

 

[symbolic]

theDiggler,

thank you so much . I cut my hand (deep but minor) and therefore am using windows xp speech recognition program . Not bad so far .

anyway , I finally got my address book to work .

all I needed to do is right click on my contacts, then properties, and enable the option to use my contacts as my address book.

works well now . your links to Microsoft sparked some the ideas and made it happened .

Thank you again .

PS do you know how all to disable contacts that have a fax number so that it does not to show up on your address book ?

 

[TheDiggler]

You're welcome I guess

In answer to your P.S. ... NO CLUE. Windows faxing capabilities (when enabled) are integrated into Outlook. When you receive a fax (using Windows faxing capabilities), it appears similar to an e-mail in Outlook. That's why contacts w/ Fax #'s appear in your address book.

In addition to that ugliness of the Outlook Address Book, the way Outlook shows contacts multiple times (if the contact has more than one e-mail addresses defined in it) is VERY ANNOYING. If it showed each e-mail address in an easy to see view, that would be less annoying; however, it still sucks.

If you figure out an elegant solution to the fax/multiple e-mail issue, please post. Good luck w/ your cut hand.

 

[ManDeJapan]

Hi Symbolic and TheDiggler,

I've recently been having a similar problem. I'm not sure exactly what happened but a few days ago, I closed up outlook 2002 in windows xp pro, and then when I opened it back up to check some emails, everything was completely gone, and a set up wizard came up. All the emails, contacts, addresses, etc were gone. I was hoping that it was just a glitch so I restarted my computer, but still outlook was gone. I finally found the outlook .pst file that same day and imported it by going to File --> Import & Export---> Import from another program or file, chose personal folder file(.pst) and imported the outlook file. After I was done all of my emails, tasks, contacts, calendar events were back. The only problem was when I opened the address book with that little book icon, none of the email addresses were there, and also when I type in a group distribution list name, the outlook email composing browser didn't recognize the group name. So, I literally have to go in and copy and paste each email address. I've tried doing almost everything in this thread, but when I go to the address book, tools, options, there are no options for me in the drop down menu to choose like "contacts". They're just blank and teh "add" option is not bold, so I can't select that. Have any ideas?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[ManDeJapan]

Nevermind. I figured it out. I just used that link that you had there about reinstalling the address book, and then after that, I had to do what symbolic also had to do...clicking on that option in the contacts properties.

Thanks for all the help though. This thread was really helpful!

Mike