Address-default and nicknames both suddenly uncooperative

[Mark Tangard]

One of my users is having the following problem. It only just began,
and her PC has had no recent major installs, uninstalls, etc. She's
running OL 2002 under WinXP.

A guy in her Contacts has 2 email addresses. He has a third address on
AOL which he has used only once to email her. She replied to that
address, also only once. It thus was added to her Contact entry for
him. She has since removed it. All this was over a year ago. All
three addresses begin with the same 8 characters. The address she uses
most often is, and has always been, in the first position in the dropdown

Even though the AOL address is not in her Contacts anywhere, it has now
become the *default* address when she begins a message to him by typing
the first few letters of his address. When it appears, she has
right-clicked and chosen the correct address, assuming it will then
become the default; it doesn't.

In an attempt to defeat this, she created a separate new contact for
this guy listing only his most often-used address, and added a nickname
of 'mbx' to it -- chosen because it's unlikely to occur in any other
contact.

Being a keyboard person, I myself use the nickname feature often. It
always works, i.e, I type the nickname and it resolves to the
corresponding full address. When *she* enters the nickname, Outlook
says it can't find any matches for it. When she instead types the first
few characters of the actual address, Outlook now offers the guy's AOL
address -- the address that *isn't* in her contacts list any longer.

Is there a way to fix this from either end -- either establishing the
intended default address for a multi-address Contact, or making
nicknames resolve to the address they're attached to?

Many thanks for any clues.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

You are mistaken. The address was, in fact, never added to her Contacts
data. Only to her autocompletion cache.
Just remove it. Remove individual addresses from the autocompletion cache by
highlighting the entry when presented in the suggested names list (use your
arrow key to migrate to the entry) and then hitting your Delete key before
you tab out of the field. To clear the entire cache, follow the instructions
here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q287623

 

[Randy]

Mark,

While Russ' advice is accurate and to the point, you should also know that
we have developed a utility that will enable you to read and edit the
autocomplete "cache" file. Currently, it is not available for Exchange
customers, but it works just fine for the stand alone version of OL. The
Exchange version should be finished in less than a week.

Unfortunately, too many people take the attitude to just delete this or
delete that. That has been the pat answer from most help desks at M$.
Heck, you can also delete the entire autocomplete file if you want to.

Usually, on newer versions of Outlook (though not always) the filename is
Outlook.nk2.

Further, it is usually found in your Documents and Setting Folder. (Make
certain that in your Folder settings, you can view hidden and system
folders.)

Here's where you can look for it manually:
Docs and Settings\Your login user name\applications\Microsoft\Outlook.

When you go to that directory, there should now be at least one file with an
extension of NK2.

If you wish to search for this file, start your search dialogue, and select
Advanced Search options to search for Hidden and System files. Next, you
should look in your Documents and Settings folder and search for *.nk2.

If you rename it, your system will not see it and it will create a brand new
nk2 file for you.

However, if you want to be able to view and access the info. in that file
(as thousands have) you can go to: www.dcs-imaging.com/products.htm and
checkout our Owtlook product.

Randy

 

[Mark Tangard]

Thank you Russ, that worked. But she's still not happy: Having never
seen the nickname feature work, she's eager to apply it; but her Outlook
(2002) doesn't respond the way mine (& apparently everyone else's here)
does -- that is, recognizing the nickname string & resolving it to the
address. She's the only one here using 2002; the rest of us have 2000.

Is there a setting that enables this? Was the feature removed for 2002?

TIA

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

That's a different feature called autoresolution or Automatic Name checking.
You can enable it in the same dialog box as autocompletion ("Suggest
Names...").

 

[Randy]

Mark,

Go to: Tools, Option, Preferences Tab, E-Mail Options, Advanced E-Mail
Aptions and check the box next to "Suggest names when completing To:, Cc:,
and Bcc: fields.

This info. isn't stored in your Contact folder. It is stored in a separate
system file. That file can be opened using an editor called Owtlook found
at www.dcs-imaging.com/products.htm if it her Outlook is not being used in
an Exchange environment. We will be releasing a version for Exchange
users soon.

I don't see much value in downloading our editor at this time as it sound
like she may have a completely deleted the file containing her autocomplete
information. However, in the near future, we will be building an "import
utility" that will enable one to import "Contact Folder" data into the
Autocomplete (NK2) for convenience and backup. If you desire more
information, you can contact us directly at
sales(removethis)@dcs-imaging.com.

Randy McNees