Four address books were not enough: six is the magic number.

Outlook address book, Outlook Express address book, Windows Mail address book, Windows Vista Contacts and now Windows Live Mail and Windows Live address  books: how many other stupid address books will we need before we get a way to sync between them? How many others before we get an acceptable Office integration?

Why do I need to  buy a version of office that includes Outlook if I just want to send documents as attachments with office and mail clients other than outlook? Why doesn' t Windows Live Desktop Mail v3 play well with Office until you disconnect  from your .NET account?

Technically, Windows Live Mail is the successor of Windows Mail and Windows Mail is the successor of Outlook Express. And doesn't Windows Mail use the Windows Vista Contacts address book?

Bas said:

Technically, Windows Live Mail is the successor of Windows Mail and Windows Mail is the successor of Outlook Express. And doesn't Windows Mail use the Windows Vista Contacts address book?

I have two. Windows own which I don't use and the Windows live one which is common across mail, messenger etc. which is my life.

First of all, why would you have 4 email programs on one computer? Not to mention, that 3 of them are the same program, just different successive versions of it.

I'm positive that Windows Mail uses Vista's built-in contacts thing, as I've seen contacts created by something in there, and I've never created a contact for anyone on my computer or ever stored anyone's address/email/phone #.

Now, Windows Live storing its address book somewhere seperate than the Windows one makes a bit of sense as isn't it stored in your online profile? At the very least, it could other an option to sync up the two, to put all of your Windows Live addresses in with your Windows addresses and vice versa. But, even that is problematic, as if 2 people use Windows Live * under the same user account, then you will end up with their contacts as well.

Andor said:

First of all, why would you have 4 email programs on one computer? Not to mention, that 3 of them are the same program, just different successive versions of it.

I'm positive that Windows Mail uses Vista's built-in contacts thing, as I've seen contacts created by something in there, and I've never created a contact for anyone on my computer or ever stored anyone's address/email/phone #.

Now, Windows Live storing its address book somewhere seperate than the Windows one makes a bit of sense as isn't it stored in your online profile? At the very least, it could other an option to sync up the two, to put all of your Windows Live addresses in with your Windows addresses and vice versa. But, even that is problematic, as if 2 people use Windows Live * under the same user account, then you will end up with their contacts as well.

It seems like MS wants to sweep "Windows Contacts" under the rug in Windows 7. Nothing in the OS uses it, and access to it is relegated to those who know how to get to the user folder via the breadcrumb bar context menu. Windows Live Mail Desktop (or whatever it's called) should have supported it. But with so many people staying on XP, I guess it was easier to roll their own.

PS: iTunes supports syncing the iPhone with Windows Contacts and Calendar on Vista. I wonder what will happen for Windows 7.

Andor said:

First of all, why would you have 4 email programs on one computer? Not to mention, that 3 of them are the same program, just different successive versions of it.

I'm positive that Windows Mail uses Vista's built-in contacts thing, as I've seen contacts created by something in there, and I've never created a contact for anyone on my computer or ever stored anyone's address/email/phone #.

Now, Windows Live storing its address book somewhere seperate than the Windows one makes a bit of sense as isn't it stored in your online profile? At the very least, it could other an option to sync up the two, to put all of your Windows Live addresses in with your Windows addresses and vice versa. But, even that is problematic, as if 2 people use Windows Live * under the same user account, then you will end up with their contacts as well.

"But, even that is problematic, as if 2 people use Windows Live * under the same user account, then you will end up with their contacts as well."

Create a folder for each Live account's contacts in the contacts folder.

Bas said:

Technically, Windows Live Mail is the successor of Windows Mail and Windows Mail is the successor of Outlook Express. And doesn't Windows Mail use the Windows Vista Contacts address book?

Technically, Windows Live Mail is the successor of Windows Mail and Windows Mail is the successor of Outlook Express.

Yes, and they all use different address book formats. You also have to pray the email import to work. Import between windows mail, windows live mail and outlook never worked properly for me and I don't think I'm a single case: there are plenty of people that couldn't get it working too on online forums. Would you believe that WLMail wasn't even tested properly as a office 2007 mail client? You have to use its offline address book if you want to send mail with any office application because if you use the online one it won't start-up properly and throw all sort of errors because it hasn't yet connected to the .NET profile when it has been invoked by MAPI.

And doesn't Windows Mail use the Windows Vista Contacts address book?

I don't know, I see different things in the contacts folder, contacts gadget and windows mail, either it's the pc suite that f-ed up everything when I tried to sync contacts or windows mail keeps it own internal db that sometimes isn't synced correctly with windows contacts.

Andor said:

First of all, why would you have 4 email programs on one computer? Not to mention, that 3 of them are the same program, just different successive versions of it.

I'm positive that Windows Mail uses Vista's built-in contacts thing, as I've seen contacts created by something in there, and I've never created a contact for anyone on my computer or ever stored anyone's address/email/phone #.

Now, Windows Live storing its address book somewhere seperate than the Windows one makes a bit of sense as isn't it stored in your online profile? At the very least, it could other an option to sync up the two, to put all of your Windows Live addresses in with your Windows addresses and vice versa. But, even that is problematic, as if 2 people use Windows Live * under the same user account, then you will end up with their contacts as well.

First of all, why would you have 4 email programs on one computer? Not to mention, that 3 of them are the same program, just different successive versions of it.

I never said that you should have 4 mail clients on the same computer, I said that they keep changing the format of address books that are incompatible between them and cannot be synced. Many applications like phone suites can only sync with the old windows contacts that are incompatible with everything else so you're forced to have at least 2 address books on vista unless you use exclusively the obsolete windows mail client.

In a brilliant move Microsoft also chose to have Outlook 2007 render the HTML in e-mails through.... the perfectly-standard-compliant WORD 2007 HTML ENGINE! making all non-work HTML emails look like crap and forcing you to keep your work accounts in outlook and your other email accounts on another mail client. Now that win7 removed windows contacts things got even worse, with all the applications that started supporting windows contacts becoming useless.

Toodles am off to do what me does.

 

Like post in a couple more ancient, dead threads?