Contacts broken (XP SP2)

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A few days ago I did a clean install of WinXP and therefore, had to reinstall all applications. I installed OXP and most everything worked except for Outlook. I couldn’t open my old .PST file. So I uninstalled OXP and reinstalled from the beginning. Outlook worked this time and I was able to open the .PST. However, there is one strange problem. Outlook thinks there are two contact folders. When I send an email, Outlook won’t complete the email address. If I click on the To: button there is nothing in the contact window that comes up (see screenshot below).

I get this error msg:
The address list could not be displayed. The Contacts folder associated with this address list could not be opened; it may have been moved or deleted, or you do not have permissions. For information on how to remove this folder from the Outlook Address Book, see Microsoft Outlook Help.

If I select the 2nd Contacts entry, then my contact info is all there and everything works OK. It looks like the first install left a blank contacts entry somewhere in the registry and I probably have to delete it. Anyone know what the key is?

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Can you simply select the empty Contacts folder from the Folder List and delete it? (I would guess it is simply the default that OL created for you when you reinstalled.)

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No, don’t see any way to do that. There aren’t two folders in Outlook. Only in that dropdown are two contact folders listed. Which means something has gone bad with registration.

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And you can’t delete the “ghost ” from Tools, Services,Addressing?

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How do you find that box? I’m using Windows XP and Office XP. But in Outlook, under Tools there is no “Services” choice. Help!

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You must be on Exchange. Under IMO, there aren’t any services. The menu here is located under Tools|Addressbook|Tools|Options. I tried to delete the bad contact name (the first one) by clicking “remove”, but it won’t go away. I tried closing OL and rebooting to no avail. However, I was able to select the 2nd Contacts list and that seems to have solved the problem (though I would like to get rid of that extraneous contact name. I did a search in the registry but didn’t find the extra contacts name there. Thanks!

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Outlook 2002 (XP) doesn’t have 2 modes.

Tools | Email accounts | change address books, select outlook address book then change – the extra contacts should be listed there,select and delete. You may also be able to remove ghosts from tools | address book, then tools | options menu. If these don’t work, make a new profile.

BTW – these ghosts are usually caused by moving the pst to a new location. The profile remembers the contacts list in the old location but it is no longer found.

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OK, now we’re cooking…

The tools | Email Accounts |View or change existing directories or address books was the key, not the tools | address books section. I thought I removed the ghost version but the real contacts got removed. Just in case, I exported my contacts. Then I deleted the remaining contacts entry at the link above. Then I recreated the one I wanted. Now the ghost is permanenetly gone. And yes, this occurred when I reloaded my old .PST file after installing Outlook and it was at adifferent location than the default.

I wish MS would stop defaulting everything to C:. Keeping personal data on C: is a fine way to lose all your data if you do a clean reinstall of Windows. Given that most machines these days have at least a 10GB hard drive, it doesn’t make any sense to not partition your disk into logical drives. I’ve used TweakUI and X-Setup to relocate most of my “local data” from C: to D: but that is only for my account. Both of these utilities do not make it easy to transfer a whole account (and all the associated files like cookies, TIF, security, etc.) such as ADMIN or GUEST to another logical drive. MS could make this a lot easier to do and save everyone a lot of trouble on Win installs..

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You didn’t really need ot expert the contacts – the address book is a virtual view of contacts. But as long as it’s working…

I believe they use the user path so it gets backed up. Many businesses only backup the user path, others use roaming profiles and that entire tree is stored on the server. (It’s a bind when large files, like a pst or ost are in the tree though, so many businesses who use roaming move the psts.) It also makes it easier for newbies to backup – they just need to save and restore the my docs tree.

My personal preference would be for MS to move it to the actual my docs folder – maybe with a folder named ” My Outlook”. It would make it easier for everyone to find the files.

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Thanks. This really helped. When I went to do it, though, I discovered I had actually made two contacts lists with the same name — one as a subfolder under Contacts, the other as a subfolder under Personal Folders. It was simple to figure out which one had names in it and which was blank and delete the blank one. Thanks for heading me in the right direction!

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That and I overlooked that the question is about OL02, which doesn’t have two modes. In any case MaryJ has steered you all straight where I failed.

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