Windows Mail auto-complete contacts

[Claire Andrews]

When I use my Windows Mail (Vista) there are a few of my contacts that will
'auto complete' but not all of them. I have the setting set properly, and
some work. I have about five that begin with "J" and only one of them will
auto complete. On the others I have to type the entire address.

Why do some work, and not others?

Claire

 

[Guest]

When I use my Windows Mail (Vista) there are a few of my contacts that
will 'auto complete' but not all of them. I have the setting set
properly, and some work. I have about five that begin with "J" and only
one of them will auto complete. On the others I have to type the entire
address.

Why do some work, and not others?

Claire

Windows Mail doesn't use the contacts list to auto complete addresses.
Instead,
it uses a separate list of the last 29 addresses you sent messages to.

If you'd rather use the contacts list, start a new message as usual, except
don't
type any part of the address. Instead, click on To:.

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

Auto-complete works well in Windows Live Mail.
http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview

 

[Keith NZ]

After all this time and over 11,000 messages about the problem, one would
have thought Microsoft would have corrected the auto-complete error in the
software. On should not have to look up addresses each time. We are back with
the functions of 1980s software.

Windows Mail is not well thought out at all. It is a downgraded version of
Outlook Express with colours. A Vista version of OE would be welcome.

Features in Outlook Express should have been retained but were not. For
example all my contacts are now listed by first name, and can't be sorted by
surname. One assumes the MS person who made this change had so few contacts
that it didn't seem important to have the feature of sorting on either given
or surnames.

 

[Dave]

Windows Mail appears to have been a stop gap measure, to meet the release
date for Vista. It hasn't been updated since it was released over a year
ago. The newer Windows Live Mail works better.

To sort..........
In the Contacts folder:
Change the View to "Details".
Right-click on the "Name" column heading, click on "First Name", then click
on "Last Name"
Click on the "Last Name" heading to sort by that, or click on "First Name"
heading to sort by that.

In a Create Mail window:
Click on To:
Click on the "Name" column heading... it cycles thru 4 different sorts

In the Contact Properties:
click on the down arrow at the end of the Full Name box

 

[Guest]

Microsoft has apparantly given up on fixing Windows Mail; they haven't
offered any new update for it in about 17 months. They now offer the
similarly named Windows Live Mail program, though, which handles
auto-completion better:

http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview