Good thing you asked the first "inane" question or I wouldn't have known what
version of Outlook you're using ;-)
To fix the "Select Names" issue: In Outlook 2002 and 2003, go to Tools |
E-mail accounts, select "View or change existing directories or address
books", and click Next. If you don't see the OAB in the Directories and
Address Books list, click the Back button, then select "Add a new directory
or address book", then "Additional Address Books", and add the OAB. Then
keep clicking Back until you get back to the first dialog box, and go back to
the Directories and Address Books list as you did earlier. In Outlook 2007
you shouldn't have a missing OAB so you can ignore the above for that machine.
Once the OAB appears in the list, select it and then click Change to make
sure the Contacts folder(s) you want to display are listed. If any of them
aren't listed, you'll need to enable those Contacts folders as Outlook
Address Books by right clicking the folder, selecting Properties, clicking
the Outlook Address Book tab, and checking the "Show this folder as an E-mail
address book" box. Make sure you restart Outlook after making these changes.
As far as merging the two sets of contacts -- is there a reason the contacts
in the Archive.pst file were archived in the first place? Do you really need
them in your main .PST? If so, I would probably just drag them all from one
folder to the other, then use a duplicates checker to get rid of anything
that's been doubled. Later versions of Outlook will usually tell you if
there is already a contact with the same e-mail address in the contacts
folder, and ask you if you want to keep one or the other or merge the two. A
third option is to switch to an unfiltered table view of your main Contacts
folder after moving the other contacts to it, and arranging them in such a
way that you can see the dupes easily, then remove them manually. I'd keep a
copy of the contacts in the Archive folder till you're satisfied you've got
all the correct info in your main Contacts.
Finally -- if you don't need your Archive file open all the time, close it,
and in the global AutoArchive properties, tell Outlook not to leave it open
after it autoarchives. No need to have another file literally open to
corruption; you can always open the file again later from within Outlook
using File | Open | Outlook Data File.
--
Jocelyn Fiorello
*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please reply
only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***
GPO said:
Hi,
While I'm in the mood for asking inane questions I'll fire another one
through. I have two .pst files. One (called outlook.pst) containing current
stuff, and one (called archive.pst) containing older stuff.
Both of them are open and visible in outlook.
When I type a new e-mail and click [To...] the dialog box that pops ("Select
names") ALWAYS brings up a list of contacts from my archive pst file instead
of my outlook.pst file. How do I stop this?
Ideally I would like to synchronise the two lists of contacts and get rid of
the archive.pst contacts entirely. Is there a way of doing this that can go
through records that are probably duplicates, and highlight the differences,
so I can decide which to keep?
Regards
GPO
