Address Book


Adding a Directory Service Adding Senders or Recipients to Address Book Address Format
Aliases Rather than Full Names Field Syntax for Shared E-Mail Addresses Importing Addresses
Locating and Changing the Location of Your Address Book Matching Address Book Names Multiple Contacts with Identical Names
Printing Your Address Book Using Groups to Send Messages to Multiple Addresses Using IMN Address Book with Other Applications
Using Multiple Address Books



Adding a Directory Service

Infospace or any directory service can be setup to have a "Visit XXXXXXXX" button in "Find." Infospace will be setup next as an ldpa service any day now. At the moment you can access their fine service from the "visit" button. When their ldap service is put in service (any day now) you will be able to use it the same as you do "411" and "Bigfoot" now. To add this or any other ldap service so that you can see a "Visit XXXXXXXX" button, follow the directions provided by Uncle Gus Hallgren (and later set forth in Knowledge Base Article Q164433) that are set forth below:

Click File | Address Book

Click File | Directory Services

Click Add

In "Friendly Name," type "Infospace" (without the quotation marks) or the name of the service that you are adding.

In "Directory Service," type "ldpa.infospace.com" (without the quotation marks)

For "Authentication Type," mark the circle for "Anonymous"

Click OK 2x

This will add "Infospace" to your "Find" Search Window. This also adds a "Key" to your Registry at: HKEY_CURRENT_USER / Software / Microsoft / WAB / Server Properties/ infospace. It also adds all the necessary values . . . except . . . Server Information URL. To add this information, open Regedit, go to the path described above and click on the "Infospace" key. Right click in name pane and select New | String Value. Type "Server Information URL" (no quotes) and press enter 2x. Type "www.infospace.com" (no quotes) and click OK. Click eXit. All regular warnings to back up registry are in force when mucking with it. You will now have a "Visit Infospace" button in "Find," and when ldap is live you will be able to use it the same as Bigfoot and 411. Don't be alarmed if you get a can't find directory message. That message appeared using 411 the first couple of days. For the official MS position on this issues, read Knowledge Base Article Q164730.

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Adding Senders or Recipients to Address Book

To add a sender's or recipient's address to your address book, select File | Add to Address Book when you have a message open, and you will be given the option of adding either the sender's or the recipient's address to your address book. Alternatively, again with the message open, highlight the sender's name, right click and select "Add to Address Book."

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Address Format

To separate addresses, News uses commas and Mail uses semicolons. However, don't worry. Within each program, the addressing format does work.

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Aliases Rather than Full Names

The Mail help file has an index for "aliases - adding to address book", but the associated help text makes no mention of aliases. As a work around, in Mail, click File | Address Book. On the Address Book toolbar, click New Contact. You can enter the alias here. I enter an alias I wish to use for each address by only filling in the "First Name" field. For reminders about who this alias refers to, I click on the Notes tab and enter the real-name there. While this is not perfect, it works.

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Field Syntax for Shared E-Mail Addresses

Some users have requested the ability to designate a non e-mail address in the To: line. This way, even though there is only one e-mail account, the messages can be distributed properly. IMN permits you to any of a number of names at one e-mail address using the Address Book. Simply type in the name and then the same e-mail address for each name. The To: in each case will appropriately reflect the person to whom the message should be routed. No special formatting other than that is required.

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Importing Addresses

Exchange/Messaging, Eudora, Netscape and Win 3.X Addresses. For users of Build 1160 or higher, IMN contains internal conversions tools for Exchange/Messaging, Eudora, Netscape, and Win 3.X Addresses. To access these tools, open the Windows Address Book, select Tools | Import | Address Book and select your choice. Follow the selection prompts to locate the appropriate file conversion tool. Please note that (i) FAX addresses may be imported from Messaging, but will be useless in Mail; (ii) importing from Outlook97 is done by selecting Exchange/Messaging; and (iii) extended information may not import correctly from some address lists.

Importing Directly into Groups. At present, you cannot directly import E-mail addresses into Groups. You will need to create a separate Contact entry for each E-mail address and then select the created Contact into the desired Group.

Conversion of Other Address Books. Users needing to convert from email clients not listed above should visit one of the following web sites for possible assistance:

Sue Mosher's Exchange/Messaging/Outlook Conversion Tips page has extensive help/hints on moving from one client to another.

Joseph Davidson's Interguru E-Mail Conversions page will attempt to convert many address lists to the format you need. Read the instructions carefully, as there may be several steps to get the end product you desire.

Users of Outlook97 should visit the Outlook newsgroups and the MS Outlook web pages frequently. Utility updates and patches are posted frequently on this new product, to include conversion assistance items as they become available.

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Locating and Changing the Location of Your Address Book

Your IMN Address Book file is located in the Windows directory (typically C:\Windows) and has the extension ".wab". If you log onto your machine with a username, then the file name is "username.wab" (e.g., if your login name is "JoeSmith", your file name is "JoeSmith.wab"). If you do not have a username or login setup for your machine, then the Address Book defaults to the name "UserMPS.Wab".

According to Vikram Madan (MS), you should not rename your address book without modifying the corresponding registry key. Conversely, if you move your Address Book file to a different machine, you will not be able to see the Address Book contents unless the file path and name match the exact registry setting on the target machine. The path to the Address Book is stored in the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ WAB \ Wab File Name. For more information from MS on this topic, read Knowledge Base Article Q156828.

In light of the foegoing, Mail can create an address book or mailbox at any other drive you select by changing the registry. Using the A: drive as an example, open Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ WAB \ "Current WAB Filename" and change "Current WAB Filename" to "A:\NewFileName.wab". This very same procedure also would allow the address book to be stored on a network drive. Again, just replace the value with the new name and location of the WAB file. Note that the WAB is not configured to run off of a server, so if there are multiple people trying to access this same file, expect problems.

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Matching Address Book Names

At this time, the Address Book recognizes a name only if the full name matches. If you type only the first name, Address Book displays a dialogue box with a best guess. This is a "Known Issue."

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Multiple Contacts with Identical Names

If you have multiple contacts with identical names, IMN searches for and sends the message to the first matching contact. As a work around, type in only a partial name and IMN will display a list of all potentially matching contacts. This, too, is a "Known Issue."

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Printing Your Address Book

Printing the Windows Address Book was not possible prior to Build 1160 of IMN. Assuming, however, that you have Build 1160, simply open the Windows Address Book and select File | Print. When the print dialogue box pops up, you will be presented with three options for print formats -- Memo, Business Card and Phone List. Select the one you prefer and click OK.

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Using Groups to Send Messages to Multiple Addresses

The easiest way to send the same message to multiple e-mail addresses is to use the Groups feature inside the Address Book. Use File | Address Book and click on "New Group" and follow the instructions. If you have all of the e-mail addresses in your Address Book already, all you have to do is to add them to your desired group. Then, when you send your message, click on the icon next to the To: and select the group that you wish to select. Note that after making this selection and while you are still composing the message, the address block will not show the names of the individual addresses selected. Instead, it will only show the name of the group. However, when you send the message, all the addresses of the members of the Group will appear in the To: field. For an oft requested feature in this regard, see Private Send to Multiple Recipients.

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Using IMN Address Book with Other Applications

In General, although it would be nice to use the Internet Mail & News Address Book with Word for Win95, according to Steve Nickerson (MS), at this time Internet Mail and Internet News are the only applications written to take advantage of the new Windows Address Book.

Nonetheless, with a little maneuvering, you can use the Windows Address Book with Exchange/Messaging/Outlook. To do this, you will need to make sure that you have downloaded and installed the latest version of IMN. Having done that, you will have, among other things, created an entry on your Start/Programs menu called Windows Address Book. This is the IMN Address Book, which can now be run as a standalone application. Be sure that Exchange/Messaging/Outlook is set to be your default email client. You can verify that from within IE, or by visiting Control Panel/Internet/Programs and checking the email client there. Now that you have things installed, open the Address Book, click on a name, and from the pulldown File menu select Send Mail. If all the above worked correctly, it should open Messaging with that person's email address already in the To: line. Assuming that all worked OK, you can keep the WAB open and minimized, or even use a 3rd party utility to place it in the Tray area of Win95 for quick(er) access. For more information about this approach, visit Sue Mosher's Exchange FAQ Site.

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Using Multiple Address Books

Build 1160 of IMN adds the new feature of using more than one Windows Address Book ("WAB"). Of the various ways to do that, one of the easiest is to click on the Start button, then Run, and type in WAB plus the full path name for the AB to use. You can get the command line parameters by typing WAB /? in that Run box. However, opening a new or additional WAB file only works for that one email post. If you would like to use that same WAB file just as you use your default WAB file, follow the instructions set forth below. However, before proceeding, please understand that the procedure described below (i) was developed by and is compliments of Sky King; (ii) is for Intermediate to Advanced users only; and (iii) applies only to those who have installed Build 1160 or later of MS Internet Mail and News. In other words, do not use this with any Internet Mail or News system prior to Build 1160.

There is a new Registry entry added by Build 1160 regarding the WAB files. One of those lists the default WAB file that you normally use, i.e., the one you see if you click on the little cardfile icon in the address lines of your messages. You can easily change the default WAB file for any given session by modifying that registry entry.

To proceed, download both the IMN Default WAB Reg File and the IMN Other WAB Reg File. After downloading these files, DO NOT double click on them. Instead, follow the editing instructions below.

IMN Default WAB.reg is set to my default WAB file. YOU MUST EDIT THIS FILE!!!!!. Inside Windows Explorer, right click on IMN Default WAB.reg and select "Edit." When Notepad opens the reg file, change the "ERICM" portion to what your WAB file is named when you view it in your Windows directory. This is the WAB file used when you first start the system. Remember that you must edit this file to reflect your own WAB name. Otherwise, you'll simply create a new WAB with my name and nothing in it. If you don't edit this file, you will not be able to get back to your own default WAB file without using RegEdit.

Modify IMN Other WAB in the same fashion as you just modified IMN Default WAB. You also might want to change the "Other" in the downloaded file name to "Personal", "Family", "Work" or whatever else suits your needs.

There you have it. Assuming a standard setup, when you double click on IMN Other WAB, it will become your default WAB. When you want to return to your default WAB file, simply double click on that REG file.

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