Outlook email - 'contacts' appears three times

[DW]

When I want to write an email, I click on 'new' then 'TO:'. On the right
side of the screen, it says 'Show Names from the:', and in the white box
below, it says Contacts. Problem is, that 'Contacts' file is empty. If I
click on the drop down arrow just to the right of the word Contacts, I get a
list. The top item in the list, indented slightly to the left, is "Outlook
Address Book", which is empty. The other three items in the drop down list
are all labeled 'Contacts', but the first one is blank, and the other two
have my full contact list.

Every time I write an email, I have to access the drop down list and select
the second or third Contacts item. How can I eliminate the first and third
'Contacts' choices, so that I have only one, and that one has all my
contacts?

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

When I want to write an email, I click on 'new' then 'TO:'. On the right
side of the screen, it says 'Show Names from the:', and in the white box
below, it says Contacts. Problem is, that 'Contacts' file is empty. If I
click on the drop down arrow just to the right of the word Contacts, I get
a list. The top item in the list, indented slightly to the left, is
"Outlook Address Book", which is empty. The other three items in the drop
down list are all labeled 'Contacts', but the first one is blank, and the
other two have my full contact list.

You have a misconfigured Outlook Address Book service. Exactly how to fix
it is version-dependent. IN Outlook 2007, click Tools>Account Settings,
choose the Address Books tab, select the Outlook Address Book service and
click Change. Remove the unneeded folders there. They should appear in the
order the "Show names from the" drop-down shows them.

For Outlook 2003 and 2002, click Tools>E-mail Accounts>View or change
existing directories or address books>Next. Select Outlook Address Book and
click Change. For Outlook 2000 in Corporate/Workgroup mode, click
Tools>Services and proceed from there.