I recently ran into a problem after moving someone’s Outlook pst file to a new computer. (This was actually moving from Outlook with Office XP, to Outlook 2003). I replaced the default Outlook.pst file from the new installation with the one I had saved from the old computer. (Which, under Windows XP, was stored in C:\Documents and Settings\<profilename>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook ) After doing this, the existing email, calendar and contacts were appearing fine in Outlook. However, when creating a new mail message, and then clicking the “To” button, an error message appeared saying that no contacts were available. For some reason, although the contacts were available, there were not accessible to this process.
The first step in solving this problem was to select Contacts, then right-click on the Contacts icon under My Contacts. I selected Properties, then the Outlook Address Book tab. On this screen, I selected the checkbox for “Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book”. After clicking OK, and then repeating the process of a new email message, and clicking the “to” button, I still got the error message. However, when I clicked the droplist for the “Show names from the:” field, there were now TWO entries for Contacts. The first was empty, but the second appropriately showed the contacts. Functional, but clunky.
To solve this problem, I had to go to the main Outlook screen, and select Tools/Email Accounts… Then I selected View or change existing directories or address books. With the lone address book highlighted, I clicked the “Change…” button. On the screen that appeared, there were two Contact list entries. With the top one highlighted, I clicked “Remove Address Book”. After closing and re-opening Outlook, problem solved! One address book/contact list, accessible as expected.
