Outlook 2003 – invisble contacts!

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I’d posted a bunch of issues a few posts down, all resolved now (thanks) and I have a fully working Outlook 2003 again – phew.

One minor issue remains and I thought a new thread would be a cleaner way to address it.

When I click on Contacts (at the bottom of the left pane) I am used to the contacts appearing, just as the Calendar appears when I click on that. They don’t. All that happens is that the left pane changes, but the main pane still contains whatever I was last doing – mail or calendar usually.

To make the contacts visible I have to click on the appropriate folder up at the top left – then they appear, and are still there when I come back . . . until I restart Outlook.

I have been through all the settings I can fiind, including:

[*]Tools, Address Book, Tools, Options – where I have the correct address book selected in each of the three options there.
[*]Tools, Email Accounts, View or change existing directories or address books – and the correct contacts folder appears, as it should.
[*]Right click on the contacts folder, Properties, Outlook Address Book tab – where Show this folder as an email Address Book is checked.

Contacts appear in the way I expect in Outlook 2003 on another PC I have, but I cannot find the difference !

Grateful for any help.

Martin

PS I have now successfully removed and reinstalled the Outlook Address Book. Still got the same issue. I’m thinking it must be a general Outlook display setting, nothing to do with the contacts folder itself where everything that uses it works perfectly.

A possible clue: in the left (navigation) pane, if I right click on Contacts and click on Open in a new window, I get the message There are no items to show in this view. Obviously Outlook is looking in the wrong place. How do I either change that or, at least, discover where it is trying to find the Contacts (then I might be able to fix it) ?

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I may be getting closer to a diagnosis – but not to a solution.

My contacts are in a folder named Addresses.

There is another contact folder named Contact which has some odd behaviours:

1. It doesn’t show in the Contacts file list until I click on Go, Folder list. Normally all contacts file show by default.
2. It cannot be renamed or deleted.
3. If I put my contacts into this file named Contacts, they still don’t show when the Contacts pane is first opened but . . .
4. When I right click on Contacts in the navigation pane – to open in a new window – the contacts appear properly.

It seems as if this undeletable folder is grabbing the normal Contacts view somehow, is hidden in the default folder view etc – all of which points to it being corrupt perhaps ?

Is there a way maybe to force its deletion – or something else I can try.

Might compacting the database help ?

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I thought you had vanished into thin air, only to discover that you had started a new thread to replace the unfinished thread. That seems a naughty thing to do to all the readers and contributors who were following your previous thread with interest.

For you and anyone else still using Office 2003, I recommend Special Edition Using Microsoft Office 2003, from Que books, by Ed Bott and Woody Leonhard, which is probably available at a big discount if you know of a store that sells such things. It has six full chapters on Outlook 2003, which is probably enough for most of us.

The column on the left that you are talking about is the Navigation Pane, the things at the bottom are the Navigation Buttons. Below the Navigation Buttons is a similarly sized area with a few icons in it that you may find useful. To the right of the Navigation Pane is the Reading Pane. Outlook Today is what I use as a default view for Personal Folders, and what you describe as a problem is what I consider normal.

I don’t know what you had before, but because the whole thing is highly configurable it is may be easy to get what you want. Something that may be very useful to you is the ability to reset the Views to their default, if you think you had the default to begin with. This won’t change your data, it will just change the display. To quote the book mentioned above, “If you’ve messed up… just choose View, Current View, Define Views, and then select the view name and click Reset” (p. 323).

Web searches that include some of the terms above may help you, and be sure to include Microsoft Outlook 2003 (which may trigger an avalanche of Microsoft sources). One specific web site that is very good for Outlook information is SlipStick.

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