addresses not found in contact folder

[John Keith]

I recently went through the process of reinstalling OL98 and
reconnecting to my outlook.pst file and now I find that when I compose
a new email message the name I type into the to: field that email
address is not found in the contact folder. What steps do I need to
take to remedy this problem?

Thanks.


John Keith
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Depends on your version. Outlook 98 had 2 completely unrelated version.
Which are you using and how did you configure your Address Book?
If you don't know, look at line 2 of Help | About and read what it says
there.

 

[John Keith]

Depends on your version. Outlook 98 had 2 completely unrelated version.
Which are you using and how did you configure your Address Book?
If you don't know, look at line 2 of Help | About and read what it says
there.

It is internet mail only.

Everything worked fine before I did teh reinstall and I'm using the
same outlook.pst file as before (except I had to re-enter all the
calendar entries.)

One other thing to note. I have a personal folder (email.pst) that I
load also, and now this folder is found above my Outlook Today folder
whereas before it was below my Outlook Today and all the subfolders.
John Keith
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

That complicates things. IMO didn't even use the Outlook Address Book, nor
can you repair it in that version. Hopefully, you won't have to. You appear
to have done some other things incorrectly that you need to fix. There is no
way you should have 2 PST files in your profile. Why do you? How did you
migrate your old data to this new installation? In which of these files do
you see your data?

 

[John Keith]

That complicates things. IMO didn't even use the Outlook Address Book, nor
can you repair it in that version. Hopefully, you won't have to. You appear
to have done some other things incorrectly that you need to fix. There is no
way you should have 2 PST files in your profile. Why do you? How did you
migrate your old data to this new installation? In which of these files do
you see your data?

I have been using OL98 and WinXP on this machine since I purchased it
in May of 2003 without any major problems (until my calendar folder
froze whenever I tried to access it last week.)

My "Outlook Today" has all the standard folders and this is where I
keep most of my data. My contact folder has all the email addresses of
the individuals I communicate with and previously I had no trouble
when composing a new email message and typing a name in the To: field
would yeild an underlined name when I left that field, indicating
their email address had been found from the contact folder. That no
longer works and if I click on the "To:" label the window that opens
has no names in it, where previously it would have an alphebetical
list of all the names in my contact folder.

In addition to the "Outlook Today" folder I have a "Personal Folders"
which is loaded from the other pst file and it basically has email
folders and I use this to save email messages that I don't want to
keep in my inbox in the Outlook Today folder. Within this personal
folders is another contact folder that contains only contacts from my
previous employer.

As I aluded to above I have been using this configuration for several
years without problem, although I think in one of my previous posts I
now see the "Outlook Today" folder below the "Personal Folders" and
this was reviously reversed.

I appreciate your expertise in this area and if I need to learn some
tricks about proper usage of OL please guide me on!



John Keith
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Could you perhaps clue me in on what you did that caused this problem. I see
nothing in your last post. In your first post you alluded to having
reinstalled Outlook 98, a fairly drastic move if you ask me. There must be
more to this story.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Could you perhaps clue me in on what you did that caused this
problem. I see nothing in your last post. In your first post you
alluded to having reinstalled Outlook 98, a fairly drastic move if
you ask me. There must be more to this story.

Russ, I think it's a matter of an incorrectly configured Outlook Address
Book, considering the OP says he keeps his contacts in the Contact folder.
Perhaps this will help: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/180830/en-us

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

No. Not relevant. He's using IMO. You cannot configure the Outlook Address
Book in IMO because IMO doesn't use it. So nothing in that article applies.

 

[John Keith]

Could you perhaps clue me in on what you did that caused this problem. I see
nothing in your last post. In your first post you alluded to having
reinstalled Outlook 98, a fairly drastic move if you ask me. There must be
more to this story.

My problem first started when Outlook would freeze whenever I clicked
on the calendar and then tried to select an item within the calendar.
I used scanpst.exe to check my outlook.pst file but it only found
minor issues which I went ahead and repaired but it made no
difference. It was at this point that I tried to re-install OL98
thinking that some executeable within OL might have been corrupted. I
had posted an inquiry in this group earlier about this problem (OL98
hangs 3/1/2007) and the most useful resource I found regarding this
initial problem was the following url:

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-1810640.php

However I still found that when trying to drag and drop calendar items
OL98 would freeze on every item. So I resorted to manually
re-enetering every item in my calendar. Then when I needed to send an
email message I found that the address lookup capbility that I had
used for years was no longer functioning (that is, I would type in the
name of someone contained in my contact folder and after exiting from
the to: field the name would be underlined indicating that a valid
address for that name had been found in the contact folder.)

Now, here is the other piece of data that is probably critical to this
issue. Since I rarely have had to monkey around with OL98 over the
many years I've used it, after I re-installed OL98 I was not
experienced enough to just "Open" my pst file, rather I imported it.
I've thought that maybe I need to redo that particular process by
closing all my pst files and then using open again, but I find that I
cannot close my main pst as I get an error message saying I cannot
close the folder that contains my calendar, contacts and POP maibox.

Again I appreciate everyone's interest in my problem and I hope
someone can give me the magic key to restore this functionality.

At least this experience gave me the opportunity to clean up my
calendar and contact folder


John Keith
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Your best bet at this point is to try to get everything into your one
default PST file. When you look at the properties of your 2 PST files, only
one should contain the designation to "Deliver POP mail" to that folder.
Hopefully that will be the case. If so, that is your default PST file. Move
everything into that file, then close the other. Make sure you move the
_contents_ of each folder, not the folders themselves.

 

[John Keith]

Your best bet at this point is to try to get everything into your one
default PST file.
Done.

When you look at the properties of your 2 PST files, only
one should contain the designation to "Deliver POP mail" to that folder.
Hopefully that will be the case. If so, that is your default PST file. Move
everything into that file, then close the other.

The properties for the "Personal Folders" folder did not have the
"Deliver POP Mial" box checked.

The folder that was called "Outlook Today" folder did have a check in
that box but the whole line was grayed out. Also, when the other
"Personal Folders" item was closed this folder was renamed from
"Outlook Today" to "Personal Folders". And I still can't close this
folder because it contains "calendar, contacts and POP mailbox."

I'm guessing that my big error was "importing" the "default" pst when
I should have "opened" it. And the issue now is how to make OL98 think
this folder is my "default" folder.
John Keith
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

You've lost me. Can you close either folder?
If not, then you did indeed corrupt your profile by importing an PST. IMO
provides no way to create a new profile other than with a reg hack. I can
tell you how if you're game.

 

[John Keith]

You've lost me. Can you close either folder?
If not, then you did indeed corrupt your profile by importing an PST. IMO
provides no way to create a new profile other than with a reg hack. I can
tell you how if you're game.

As I thought I had noted in my last post I was able to close the one
folder but not the one that contained my calendar, contacts and POP
mailbox. I also have been able to get the top level of this folder to
read "Outlook Today" but the line in the properties window for makign
this folder the "deliver POP mail" is still grayed out (although even
in gray mode it has a checkmark in the box.)

Tell me what is involved with the hack and I'll consider doing it if
it isn't to involved.

I've also thought about again removing OL98 and reinstalling and then
pulling all the data back into the new installation from the existing
pst file.


John Keith
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Removing and reinstalling Outlook won't help a bit. You'll still be left
with the same Outlook profile.
To create a new "profile" in IMO, quit Outlook, export then delete this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Messaging
Subsystem\Profiles\Microsoft Outlook Internet Settings

Restart Outlook. It will create a new profile automatically. It will have a
brand new PST file as its default. You can then open your other data file,
copy what you need from it, then close it.

 

[John Keith]

Removing and reinstalling Outlook won't help a bit. You'll still be left
with the same Outlook profile.
To create a new "profile" in IMO, quit Outlook, export then delete this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Messaging
Subsystem\Profiles\Microsoft Outlook Internet Settings

Well that sounded simple enough except I didn't have that exact path.
I did have:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current
Version\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles

and in the right pane:
Name: Default Profile
Data: Microsoft Outlook Internet Settings

Is this the same entry to delete?

John Keith
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Yes. You never specified your OS, so I had to guess what your path might be.
I'm afraid your Outlook version and OS are from different decades. That's
never good.

 

[John Keith]

Yes. You never specified your OS, so I had to guess what your path might be.
I'm afraid your Outlook version and OS are from different decades. That's
never good.

I'm sorry. But the OS actually is WinXP (and always was), so I have no
idea how that path got started. And I'd love to upgrade many of my PC
components but I've been very under-employed for several years and I
haven't found a way to get one of those free OL upgrades I see some
people mention in these groups :-(

Having said that I've been happy with OL98 and it has done everything
I've needed from it.

BTW, this discussion has gotten way more detailed for most of this
group and if you want to take it off line feel free to use my email
address (but then you may still prefer the newsgroup).

Thanks for the detail.
John Keith
(e-mail address removed)

 

[John Keith]

Removing and reinstalling Outlook won't help a bit. You'll still be left
with the same Outlook profile.
To create a new "profile" in IMO, quit Outlook, export then delete this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Messaging
Subsystem\Profiles\Microsoft Outlook Internet Settings

Restart Outlook. It will create a new profile automatically. It will have a
brand new PST file as its default. You can then open your other data file,
copy what you need from it, then close it.

I was able to start a new "profile", at least it appeared to be new
since all the folders were completely empty. But when trying to bring
in the previous data no info is added to any of the folders. Importing
the saved registry gets me back to the previous condition so nothing
is lost.

But another item concerns me. With Outlook open, I can change the name
of the outlook.pst file that has all my data in it, and that tells me
that this is not the file being used by Outlook (the file should be
locked when OL is open.) I've searched the C: drive and only 2
outlook.pst files are found, the one in \Windows that was created when
I trweaked the registry and my larger one with the data in it located
in My Documents.

Is there any hope for getting over this hurdle?

If I did need to find a more recent version of OL that might be more
capable of resolving my problem what version would I need?


John Keith
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

How are you trying to bring in your previous data? I trust you're not trying
to import again.
Never just rename a PST file.
Just open the old PST file and copy what you want into the new one after you
create a new profile.

 

[Brian Tillman]

I was able to start a new "profile", at least it appeared to be new
since all the folders were completely empty. But when trying to bring
in the previous data no info is added to any of the folders. Importing
the saved registry gets me back to the previous condition so nothing
is lost.

Why would you import the registry key again? That's the broken profile.
You wanted a new profile, not the old one. As for your old data, use
File>Open>Personal Folder File to make it available and either 1) copy the
data to the new folders or 2) make the old PST the delivery location.
Select the root of the folders, click File>Properties and set the delivery
location to the added PST. Stop and restart Outlook, then close the empty
PST with right-click>Close.