Transfer Outlook Address Book

I recently transferred files from my old WinXP computer to a new Win7 machine using Windows Easy Transfer.
My Outlook personal folders transferred nicely from Outlook 2003 on the old machine to Outlook 2007 on the new one, and were correctly setup.
However my address book appears to have transferred but did not setup in Outlook 2007.

(On the new machine, clicking on the Address Book button brings up an empty screen.
Trying to search for a name gives the error msg: "The search cannot be completed. You must have an address list to search in. If you don't have an address list, contact your Microsoft Exchange administrator".)

(I tried displaying Contacts in the Navigation pane. It shows a contacts folder which contains all of my contacts. To make it the address book, one should right click it, select Properties, and then select the tab "Outlook Address Book". There one can select "Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book". However in my case, that selection is greyed out and is inactive.)

How do I set up my Address Book in Outlook 2007 on my new machine?

- Neal

Neal Carron said:

I recently transferred files from my old WinXP computer to a new Win7 machine using Windows Easy Transfer.
My Outlook personal folders transferred nicely from Outlook 2003 on the old machine to Outlook 2007 on the new one, and were correctly setup.
However my address book appears to have transferred but did not setup in Outlook 2007.

(On the new machine, clicking on the Address Book button brings up an empty screen.
Trying to search for a name gives the error msg: "The search cannot be completed. You must have an address list to search in. If you don't have an address list, contact your Microsoft Exchange administrator".)

(I tried displaying Contacts in the Navigation pane. It shows a contacts folder which contains all of my contacts. To make it the address book, one should right click it, select Properties, and then select the tab "Outlook Address Book". There one can select "Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book". However in my case, that selection is greyed out and is inactive.)

How do I set up my Address Book in Outlook 2007 on my new machine?

- Neal

Windows Easy Transfer is never recommended to transfer Outlook data because it causes things like this. The usual thing it causes is a corrupted mail profile, of which this is a common symptom.
There is a bug in Outlook 2007 which means that you can't remove and re-add the addressbook service.
You need to create a new Mail profile. Do Control Panel-Mail-Show Profiles-Add and create a new profile. Add the existing pst file to it and that should cure the problem.

HTH

Gordonbp said:

Neal Carron said:

I recently transferred files from my old WinXP computer to a new Win7 machine using Windows Easy Transfer.
My Outlook personal folders transferred nicely from Outlook 2003 on the old machine to Outlook 2007 on the new one, and were correctly setup.
However my address book appears to have transferred but did not setup in Outlook 2007.

(On the new machine, clicking on the Address Book button brings up an empty screen.
Trying to search for a name gives the error msg: "The search cannot be completed. You must have an address list to search in. If you don't have an address list, contact your Microsoft Exchange administrator".)

(I tried displaying Contacts in the Navigation pane. It shows a contacts folder which contains all of my contacts. To make it the address book, one should right click it, select Properties, and then select the tab "Outlook Address Book". There one can select "Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book". However in my case, that selection is greyed out and is inactive.)

How do I set up my Address Book in Outlook 2007 on my new machine?

- Neal

Windows Easy Transfer is never recommended to transfer Outlook data because it causes things like this. The usual thing it causes is a corrupted mail profile, of which this is a common symptom.
There is a bug in Outlook 2007 which means that you can't remove and re-add the addressbook service.
You need to create a new Mail profile. Do Control Panel-Mail-Show Profiles-Add and create a new profile. Add the existing pst file to it and that should cure the problem.

HTH

Gordonbp,
Thanks, but it didn't work.
I went through your entire procedure. Then, when trying to select my contacts *.pst file as the address book, the selection "Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book" is still greyed out and is inactive, just like before.
What am I doing wrong?

(It would have saved me a couple days if users were told ahead of time that "Windows Easy Transfer is never recommended to transfer Outlook data".)

- Neal

Here is a dedicated free mail transfer app:

Free email archiving and backup software - MailStore Home

I assume you would have to install it on the XP machine and run it there.

Windows Easy transfer is problematic, to put it mildly.

You call MailStore a "dedicated free mail transfer app"
But the online description of it says it only archives, and allows fast searching.
It says nothing about "mail transfer".
So I hesitate taking the time to try it.

It seems my problem is more of an internal Outlook-in-Win7 problem.
Doesn't that sound reasonable?

I still have the problem. I have no address book in my brand new computer, best new OS, and latest Outlook.

If you're stuck too, do you know anyone else who can help? I can't be the first person to encounter this problem.
Thanks.

I used a technique to transfer my address cards that I haven't seen posted. Maybe this approach will work for you.

If you still have e-mail access for the old computer, open Outlook and click on the Contacts icon. Click on one of your address cards and then press Ctrl + A to select them all. Right-click one of the highlighted cards, and select Forward items. That will put all of your address cards as attachments into a new e-mail message. Send that message to your new computer. When you receive that message on the new machine, click on one of the attached address cards, and then press Ctrl + A to highlight them all. Move that window to one side, and then drag and drop those cards to your Contacts icon in Outlook.

Neal:

I have no personal experience with that application, but it has been spoken well of on these forums.

For what it is worth, I migrated from Windows Mail to Thunderbird and could never get my contacts to import properly.

The raw info was visible in my exported address book, but it was not in an importable form. I had to manually enter new contacts based on the raw info I could see in the export.

It is pathetic, but for whatever reason, email and contact transfers remain in the stone age.

Is your address book in a .oab file? If so, find it, put it in a place you can locate easily then add it as an address book in the properties of your mail profile. I find sometimes people that know the complex workings of Windows and associated apps will often overlook the simplest of solutions. I've been guilty of that on more than one occasion.

Friday, January 15, 2010. 12:47 AM PST.

From some of the replies it appears I did not make the problem clear.
I have Win7 on a new machine, with MS Office Small Business 2007 on it, preinstalled by the manufacturer.
I used "Windows Easy Transfer" to transfer files from my old WinXP machine to this new one.
Among these transferred files were my personal Outlook folders. They all transferred nicely and are in place in Win7 Outlook 2007.
And among those transferred Outlook folders is my Contacts. It is one of the personal folders that appears in the Navigation Pane when you select Folder List. When I select it, all the contacts show up in the right pane. All well and good.
But a Contacts folder is not the same as an Address Book. The problem is that THERE IS NO ADDRESS BOOK at all in my Outlook.
This is strange by itself, since an Outlook Help page says:
"The Outlook Address Book is created automatically and contains the contacts in your default Contacts folder ...",
and
"When you open the Address Book for the first time, the default address book is displayed"
These are not true on my system.
[On this discussion group I was told that one should never use Windows Easy Transfer to transfer Outlook files. Great.]
You are supposed to be able to make an address book from a Contacts folder by the standard method: Right click on the Contacts folder, select Properties, go to the Outlook Address Book tab. On that tab select "Show this folder as an email Address Book", and enter the Contacts folder name in the window. However on my machine THOSE SELECTIONS ARE GREYED OUT AND ARE INACTIVE.
So I have the contacts folder, but I have no address book and cannot make one. THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
I am considering saving the Contacts folder, then uninstalling Outlook altogether and reinstall it and start from scratch. But Outlook does not come by itself; I would have to remove all of Small Business (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and reinstall it, saving alot of stuff beforehand. That sounds like a huge step just to make an address book that is supposed to be there in the first place.
I've tried the suggestions by folks on this DiscGroup, like creating a new profile in Outlook. None solved this problem.
So I'm back where I started, and still seeking help from these forums.
Thanks,
Neal

Have you tried adding the Outlook Address Book service?
(It's a long time since I used Outlook 2003 so can't remember too readily how you do it)

A Google should help...