Live Messenger, Live Hotmail, and Windows Live Mail - Contacts

Microsoft announced that HTTP access to Hotmail accounts from Outlook
Express would be no longer be available after June 30th. (I understand
that implementation of that decision has been postponed.)

I have two "grandfathered" Hotmail accounts and one "grandfathered" MSN
mail account - so I installed Windows Live mail on my computers. I also
imported my all of my Live Hotmail / MSN mail addresses into Windows
Live Mail. I have retained Outlook Express on my computers, for access
to newsgroups and various POP3/SMTP email accounts.

I use my primary xxx@xxxxxx Hotmail address as my Live ID sign-in
for Windows Live Mail and also for Windows Live Messenger.

I logged onto my primary Hotmail address via the Internet and imported
my Windows address book. The Live interface synchronised the resulting
contacts list with my Hotmail account and Windows Live Messenger. Then,
I removed a few duplicate entries and re-created my distribution lists
(from OE) in Windows Live Mail and Hotmail webmail. So far, so good.

However, there are inconsistencies with the way Hotmail (via the webmail
interface), Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Messenger sort my
contacts.

Hotmail (webmail) sorts contacts alphabetically - surname first. Then,
if I use the contact list to send an email to Joe Bloggs (appears in the
contact list as Bloggs, Joe), the outgoing email shows the addressee's
name correctly as "Joe Bloggs".

I have also configured Windows Live Mail to sort contacts
alphabetically - surname first. However, if I use the contact list to
send a message to Joe Bloggs, the resulting email shows the addressee's
name as Bloggs Joe. In this respect, Outlook Express and the Hotmail
webmail interface are much better. Is there any way of configuring the
contacts list in Windows Live Mail to sort the list by Surname - but to
send outgoing emails with the addressee as Joe Bloggs, not Bloggs Joe?

Windows Live Messenger is even worse. The contacts list sorts by
First Name only - and unless I am mistaken, the only sort options are
"Display Name", "First and last name" or "email address". There is no
way to to sort by Surname first. Why not?

Surname first is the most logical sort method. There are no less than
seven contacts called David in my contact list - and only one "Smith".
Need I say more? I certainly do not want to sort contacts by first
name.

"Bob Lucas" <bob@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:g38j0l$rhb$1@xxxxxx
You're talking about two different settings here. In the Contacts
window (list view), you can *sort* by any of the visible fields,
including surname, simply by clicking on the column heading. Another
setting in the View menu of the contacts window is '*Show* *names*
as first last'. This applies only to the Name field, which is
generated by WLMail and contains Nickname if there is one and First
name Last name if there isn't. If these are absent too, it uses the
preferred (I think) email address. This is the field that appears,
together with email address(es) if you select the icon next to To:
etc. in a compose window and gets written to the addressee field. If
it really means a lot to you, there's nothing to stop you manually
populating the Nickname field with, say, First name Last name. This
will override the 'Show names...' setting. It wouldn't take long to
export your contacts to csv, open the csv in Excel and insert a
little formula to fill the Nickname column, save as csv and
reimport.

I find I never use either of these when composing a message. In your
case, I bet the right contact would come up with one click and two
keystrokes: New, then sm. Only if you have more than 30 contacts
with the same combination of letters (sm) will you even have to
scroll to pick the right one.
--
Noel

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eduZrFK0IHA.4492@xxxxxx YES AND NO. If there is a Nickname, Windows Live Mail will sort the
contact list alphabetically by Nickname. Consequenly, a nickname of
"Bob Lucas" will sort under "B". A nickname of "Lucas Bob" will sort
under "L".

If there is no Nickname, Windows Live Mail will sort by First Name OR by
Last Name, depending upon your personal settings. Clicking at the top
of the Name column merely sorts the names in ascending or descending
alphabetical order. Clicking at the top of the column does not affect
whether Windows Live Mail sorts by First Name or by Last Name.

Windows Live Mail can also sort by email address, if you click at the
top of that column.

I presume your instructions relate to Windows Live Mail, as opposed to
Live Hotmail (webmail interface) or Windows Live Messenger. I have
tested your instructions with one contact but unfortunately, they did
not have the desired effect.

I have never used nicknames in Windows Live Mail for any of my contacts.
However, as a test, I added the nickname "Lucas Bob" to one of my own
POP3 email addresses. With this nickname, Windows Live Mail sorted my
name under the first character of the nickname, namely "L".

Then, in the view menu of Windows Live Mail, I selected "Sort by First
Name / Last Name". I discovered that use of a nickname overrides all
other sort options. With the nickname of Lucas Bob, Windows Live Mail
sorts the contact list alphabetically, so my contact name still appears
under "L" - not "B". So far, so good.

However, if I instruct Windows Live Mail to sort by First Name / Last
Name,it still inserts the nickname "Lucas Bob" in outgoing emails - NOT
"Bob Lucas". In other words, the "Sort Last Name / First Name" option
and the "Sort First Name / Last Name" option don't work, if a contact
has a nickname.

I repeat - I want to sort the contact list in Windows Live Mail by
Surname - not by First name. I also want the addressee's name in
outgoing emails to appear as "Bob Lucas" - not "Lucas Bob".

I have remove all nicknames once again - they seem to serve no useful
purpose.

"Bob Lucas" <bob@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:g3945h$t8p$1@xxxxxx Wrong. In a Contacts window, entries will be sorted precisely by the
field showing the sort arrow, regardless of whether there is a
nickname or no.
If you choose to sort by Nickname, then those that have one will
appear in anti/alphabetical order depending on whether you're
sorting ascending or descending. The remaining entries will be
sorted ascending by the Name field, which as I said in my last post
is generated by WLMail.
You're mixing things up again. I was talking about a Contacts
window - what you get if you click the address book icon at the foot
of the Folder panel or hit Ctrl-Shift-C. I think you're talking
about the window that opens if you click on the address book icon in
a Compose window. Again, as I said earlier, this listing behaves
differently. You cannot configure what fields appear there; you are
limited to the Name field with its associated email address(es). You
can select an addressee from this list, and the contents of the Name
field will then appear in the appropriate field in the Compose
window.
Do you mean that when you typed 'sm', your one contact whose surname
is Smith did not appear ready to be selected?
Precisely what I wrote 22 lines above this one. (I can't find an
option to 'Sort by First Name / Last Name' in any view menu.)
You want to sort the list that appears in a Compose window - which
is not the same as what is displayed in the Contacts window. What
you are trying to achieve can't be done, because the Name field
governs what goes in the addressee box. That's why I say try using
the much more efficient technique of just typing a few characters of
the addressee's name - or email address, or company name, or
anything else you can remember about him - in the addressee field.
If you're sending to a group, then the first few letters of the
group name will suffice. If not all of the members of the group are
to receive the message, you can just delete them from the addressee
field.
--
Noel

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uoMgcaM0IHA.4004@xxxxxx I'm sorry - but the entire sort system in Live Mail is fatally flawed.

I agree that if you create a Nickname for each contact, Windows Live
Mail will sort the contacts list by the first letter of the Nickname.
The same sort order applies, if you click on the address icon, at the
side of the "To:" box of an email.

I also agree that you can set the view options in Windows Live Mail to
sort by "Show names as First Last" or "Show names as Last First".

However, this option has no effect whatsoever, where the contact has a
Nickname. This applies, irrespective of whether I use the full contact
list to create the email - or whether I create an email and click on the
address icon by "To:" box of the email.

Furthermore, if a contact has a Nickname, the Nickname overrides all
other settings. Then, the contact receives emails that are addressed to
the full NICKNAME (such as Lucas, Bob POP mail account - not even to Bob
Lucas or Lucas Bob). The same thing happens, if I send emails via the
Live Hotmail webmail interface.

I simply cannot understand why Microsoft has tampered with the previous
sort method, which worked perfectly in Outlook Express, .

Hi Bob,

Have you checked out Google or Gmail.com?

https://www.google.com/accounts/Serv...d&ltmplcache=2

You can use Outlook Express through Pop Access with Gmail.


--
thecreator

"Bob Lucas" <bob@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:g38j0l$rhb$1@xxxxxx