Vista Tutorial - Contact Groups in Windows Mail

Emilio,

You should be able to backup your contacts and contact groups from your C:\Users\(user name)\Contacts folder. You can manually copy them to something like a DVD or USB flash drive to do this.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hi AdisonsMum,

Double check to make sure that Windows Contacts has all of it's default associations set to it to see if that will help.

Default Programs

Shawn

Thanks, Brink for your suggestion to COPY all Contacts, instead of Exporting them (as I used to do with the Windows Address Book). So, it seems that when I want to synchronize the Contact lists on 2 computers, there is no way to merge the COPIED contacts from one computer with the existing Contacts on the other computer.

Instead, the only way I can figure it is to designate one computer to be the main one for Contacts, and then periodically simply COPY all the Contacts onto the other computer, replacing all the existing Contacts on that other computer. It's not perfect, but this should work for me.

By the way, I still terribly miss the ability to see which Groups a person belongs to. When someone emails me, saying: "Please remove me from your mailing list", I have no idea which of the many mailing lists he/she is talking about. He/she may be in more than one Group. I have to check them all to make sure the person is removed from each of the Groups I may have set him/her up on.

I can't understand how Microsoft can claim that Windows Mail retains all the features of Outlook Express, when it obviously doesn't.

Another Outlook Express feature I miss is the ability to copy someone's email address directly from the Summary tab (when someone asks me for an email address). The ability to copy that email address has been disabled. I can only look at it, but I cannot highlight it or copy it. Even right-clicking on the email address in the Summary tab doesn't do anything! Instead, I have to go to the "Name and Email" tag, and click on EDIT, pretending I am about to edit the email address, and only then can I highlight it and copy it. It may seem like only a minor annoyance having to do a few extra clicks, but it can be a big annoyance if you have to do it a lot (which I do).

I hope Microsoft is paying attention to this Forum, and may fix things in the next version of Windows. Bring back all the Outlook Express features that were left out of Windows Mail. Why did they have to mess with a good thing to begin with?

Your welcome Emilio,

It would be nice to have a easier way to search through the contact groups.

Shawn

Help! Is it possible to send emails to multiple contacts (but not ALL contacts) in a Vista Windows Mail Contract Group?

I just spent about an hour beating my head in trying to setup Vista Mail on a friends new desktop machine and they couldn't believe that there 7 year old desktop with OE supports "Email Groups" where they could pick a Group from a LOV and then select multiple contacts from the Group to send an email to.

As far as I can tell Contact Groups in WM are simply renamed Distribution Lists since from the frustrating hour I spent fighting with it you can ONLY send an email to the ENTIRE Contact Group (unless you select a single contact as shown in the first post).

I even downloaded the free trial version of Outlook 2007 and it was same thing!!! I'm absolutely baffled how musty old OE has more features than Vista's WM?!?!

The closest hacked up workaround I could provide my friend was to create a regular folder in Contacts Manager and then copy all of the email addresses they wanted to group together. That way he could Click on Contacts, select the folder, select specific email addresses in the folder, right click and select "Send Email". The only problem with that is it doesn't directly support forwarding emails. In that case he has to then drag and drop the email he wants to forward into the body of the email which sends the forwarded email as an attachment. <sigh>

Its days like to today that make me thankful I still use Windows XP/MCE on my work and home PC's!

Hello 3.0Liter, and welcome to Vista Forums.

I couldn't agree with you more. You might give the free Windows Live Mail a try instead. It's contact manager is a lot easier to work with and should allow you to easily do what you are wanting.

Windows Live Suite Downloads

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Wonder if you have found some solution for your problem...
I have the same misfortune: many groups, but the membership is no longer listed in the individual contact file, as it was in WindowsXP...

the other thing is: is it possible to export contact groups,
from Vista Mail to Outlook...?
It seems the contact groups do not remain intact....
there must be a way...
who can help?

Thank you waaay and very much for this tutorial, and the links on how to restore my missing new contact, and new contact group, links.

Fixed my problem just like that! (fingersnap)!

I'm gonna save this page in my favorites, so I have access to this tutorial just in case I have any related issues with my windows mail.

I love this forum. Ive been able to find an answer and a fix to every issue ive had. Which, granted, hasn't been that many, as my computer is new, and I'm a new vista user.
Just the same, I'm finding much information here at the vista forums.
Again, thanks!!

You're welcome Razzell.

Shawn