Using Contacts as my Email address list

[Herman]

I want to send an email by clicking "To..." to select an address. In the Select Names popup I can use "Show names from the:" listing. In there I see Outlook Address Book, Contacts, Global Address list, All Contacts, etc., etc. How confusing! I just want to use my Contacts database to select an address or a group. But no. Even the selection called "Contacts" is not the same database as the database also called Contacts which I can easily access and maintain from the opening Outlook screen. What are all these address lists? And why cannot I just simply get an address from my main Contacts list? I'm using Office 2003 in Windows XP Pro on a Dell 3GHZ 1.5Gb Ram. Email is managed via our Server which runs Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server.

 

[dlw]

In the address book window / tools / options / show this one first

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP P/I]]

Open the Address Book and go to 'Tools|Options'. Here, you can select which
address book is displayed first, which address lists are checked, and in
which order.

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
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I want to send an email by clicking "To..." to select an address. In the

Select Names popup I can use "Show names from the:" listing. In there I see
Outlook Address Book, Contacts, Global Address list, All Contacts, etc.,
etc. How confusing! I just want to use my Contacts database to select an
address or a group. But no. Even the selection called "Contacts" is not
the same database as the database also called Contacts which I can easily
access and maintain from the opening Outlook screen. What are all these
address lists? And why cannot I just simply get an address from my main
Contacts list? I'm using Office 2003 in Windows XP Pro on a Dell 3GHZ 1.5Gb
Ram. Email is managed via our Server which runs Windows Server 2003 for
Small Business Server.

 

[Herman]

It turned out that the solution was to get the Contacts folder in Outlook's Folder list. Right click on the Contacts folder and choose Properties|Outlook Address Book and check "Show this folder as an email Address Book". That was the key because the Contacts database was not available in Address Book Tools|Options. Now it is. But I needed to understand that part of the equation also. Thanks to you and to the helpful analyst.