Cannot edit a contact's email address

[joseph.greer]

I'm hoping someone can help me solve this problem. I've scoured the
internet for similar postings and only found one report of this
problem. However, the solution was not stated. I'll be as specific as
I can about the problem.

Problem Description:
====================
Using MS Outlook 2003, I cannot edit a contact's email address in their
contact record. It seems that all fields but the email field are
editable, but the email field is locked for some reason.

IMPORTANT: This is NOT happening in an email composition. This is
happening in the Contact record.

Steps to reproduce the problem:

Scenario: Your friend has changed jobs and has given you her new email
address. Open Outlook, go to her contact record and change the
existing email address with the new one.
============================
Action: Open MS Office Outlook 2003
Response: Microsoft Exchange Server Window appears.
No server name is listed (this is run on my laptop to access POP mail
accounts only).
My name appears in the "Mailbox" field.
"Check Names" button is disabled

Action: Click "Ok" button
Response: Outlook opens successfully. In the folder list navigation
bar on the left, "Contacts" are listed under both "Personal Folders"
and "Archive Folders".

Action: Click on "Contacts" under the "Personal Folders" directory in
the Folder List
Response: Contacts appear in a grid format in the right-half of the
screen with fields as columns.

Action: Scroll till you see the row representing your friend's contact
record and click on the E-mail cell on that record.
Response: The cursor blinks in the E-mail cell for the contact

Action: Try to type something in the E-mail cell.
Response: No Change. No text is entered, but cursor continues to
blink. The field is locked


Scenario 2: Try to edit the value in the contact window:
===================================================
Action: Double-click on the contact row for your friend's contact
Response: A new Contact Card window opens for your friend. You can
see the old email address in the E-mail field.

Action: Click on the field labeled "E-mail..." and try to enter text
or type over existing text.
Response: The field is editable and you can enter the new email
address BUT...

Action: hit Enter
Response: Nothing happens. The cursor stays in the e-mail field.

Action: Hit Tab
Response: The field is now completely blank!!!
NOTE: As you type, the field attempts to auto-complete the email
address with other email addresses you have stored (from where? from
the windows address book?)

Other interesting nuances on the problem:
================================
1. in an open contact window, there is a 'phone book' button just to
the right of the email field. Clicking on this opens up a new address
book window.
2. Click on a contact then click on the "Ok" button at the bottom of
the address book window.
.... You get the following error message:
"An Outlook Address Book entry cannot be used as an email address in a
contact."

Can anyone help me figure out how to fix this so I can edit email
addresses?

Thanks in Advance,
J

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

The most immediate question is why you are getting a prompt for Exchange
server if you are not using Exchange. Convince me you configured your
Outlook profile correctly and tell me how you did so.

 

[joseph.greer]

Good question. I didn't configure it.

I'll try to answer your question. If by outlook profile, you mean mail
account settings, here's what I have:
Action: Tools==>Email Accounts... Select "View or change existing
e-mail accounts" then Click "Next"
Result: two entris show up. One for POP and one for Microsoft
Exchange Server. Double clicking on the Exchange server shows a new
dialog. The user name is my name and the field for "Microsoft Exchange
Server" is blank. "Use Cached Exchange mode" is not selected.

Hope that helps.

 

[joseph.greer]

I lied previously. I worked on a project where I had to use an email
account they gave me on their internal exchange server while also using
my POP mail account. Seems that even after uninstalling/reinstalling
outlook, these settings remained intact.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

So why don't you create a new profile with the correct transport? You can't
launch a profile that contains an Exchange account without connecting to
Exchange server.

 

[Brian Tillman]

I lied previously. I worked on a project where I had to use an email
account they gave me on their internal exchange server while also
using my POP mail account. Seems that even after
uninstalling/reinstalling outlook, these settings remained intact.

Or, instead of a new mail profile, just remove the Exchange account from the
existing one.

 

[joseph.greer]

Brian and Russ,

I removed the Exchange server entry and now I can edit email addresses.
But only in the contact card window. Not from the contact grid. So,
looks like I'm getting closer.

Can someone explain why having the exchange server information in the
profile prevented me from editing email addresses and nothing else?

Thanks for the help so far.

Joe

 

[Brian Tillman]

I removed the Exchange server entry and now I can edit email
addresses. But only in the contact card window. Not from the contact
grid. So, looks like I'm getting closer.

What the heck is a "contact grid"?

Can someone explain why having the exchange server information in the
profile prevented me from editing email addresses and nothing else?

Having a reference to a non-existent Exchange server could have a number of
side-effects.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

I've seen cases where I can't even remove the Exchange account from the
profile because it keeps trying to find the Exchange Server just by opening
the profile from CP > Mail...

 

[joseph.greer]

Hi Brian,

Sorry for the confusion. The grid I refer to appears to the right of
the navigation bar when you select contacts. It looks like a
spreadsheet almost. In the original thread, I referred to it in the
following passage:
"Action: Click on "Contacts" under the "Personal Folders" directory in
the Folder List
Response: Contacts appear in a grid format in the right-half of the
screen with fields as columns. "

In this screen, the email field is uneditable still.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

And it always will be, because it's not a simple text field like a person's name. The email "field" is actually 3 separate properties -- the display name, the address, and the type of email address. You'll need to open the contact record to edit it.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[lper.home]

Well that's the problem: how do you want to adapt ten email domain
names just because the company changed? (I have this problem, and
passed by this thread for finding a solution)
Currently you need to remove them completely and create new ones... you
can not just edit them: cut off the old domain name and paste the new
one.
In my opinion I would like to have a usable user interface: the fact
that this field exists of three fields is none of my bussiness.. I want
to be able to just edit the field like any other field.

Just like a car has a brake, steering wheel, and so one... it's not
because the engine is in the back of some cars that the pedals are in
the back to! Although it could be easier for the car engineer!

That's by the way the problem of most newer software products:
engineers like to create intelligent wisdom in their software, but if
you want to do something different than what the engineer had in mind
than you are screwed!
I may say this as I'm myself a software engineer... so I know what I'm
talking about.

So in my opinion, this feature is a bug by design. Hope that it will be
solved in next version of outlook.