Windows Address Book is SLOW!

[Ben_Tech]

I use Outlook Express 6.0, and that in turn utilizes the windows address book (WAB). The problem is for a heavy user like me, with over 15,000 contacts, creating a new message creates extreme lag, lasting for 20 seconds or so (I assume while the WAB is loaded into ram). My question is......IS there a way to eliminate this lag without deleting the contacts, or is there a email client that I can migrate to that does not feature this problem at all? Thanks!

 

[mikecel79]

You can always use Outlook 98/2000/XP. They handle contacts much better. Then there's always Eudora although I don't have much experience with them. There's tons of other mail clients you there. You just need to look. What speed is your machine?

 

[Ben_Tech]

Hi Mike. The system in question is a 1.3 Ghz AMD athlon with 512 MB sdram, 7200 rpm HDD and Win XP Pro. I have Outlook 2000 installed, I was not aware that it would handle my contacts better (I thought it used WAB also). Thanks for the tip.

 

[mikecel79]

Outlook stores them in a PST file which is a b-tree type database I think. It's much faster than WAB. I have to say that I've never heard of anyone with 15,000 contacts in their address book. At least I know around what the limit of WAB is now.

 

[Ben_Tech]

I tried transfering all of my email and contacts to Outlook 2000. However, the process took several hours, at the end of which only a tiny portion of my email and contacts were actually transfered to Outlook. The problem may lie with Outlook Express, rather than Outlook, but the import/export features on these programs appear to be very unreliable! (Yes, I have a lot of messages in my inbox.)

If anyone out there has experience with migrating to a solid email client from Outlook Express feel free to enlighten me.