Vista Tutorial - Contact Groups in Windows Mail

**Brink** · **SECTION ONE:**

How to Create and Use a Contact Group in Vista

Information

A contact group is a collection of contacts that simplifies the process of sending e‑mail to groups of people. By addressing a message to a contact group, you save time by not having to add an address to the message for each recipient. You can send the message to everyone in the contact group at once. Contact groups are designed to be used with Windows Mail, and are sometimes called mailing lists. For more information, see: Windows Help and How-to: Managing Your Contacts and Windows Help and How-to: Organize and Find Contacts

NOTE

If you put normal contacts into separate folders within the Contacts folder to separate them into groups, they will still all be listed when you click on To:, Cc:, or Bcc: in a compose email message window. A Contact Group will only be listed once here. See the screenshot in SECTION TWO below step 8.

WARNING

When using contact groups, keep in mind that they do not hide the e‑mail addresses of the recipients. When you send a message to a contact group, all the recipients will be able to see the names and e‑mail addresses of the other recipients unless you use Bcc. For how see: How to Add the Bcc Recipient to the Windows Mail Compose Message Window

Tip

The default program used to open Contacts is located at: C:\Program Files\Windows Mail\wab.exe See: How to Set Default Associations For a Program in Vista
The Contacts folder location is at: C:\Users\(your username)\Contacts
NOTE: Contacts are treated just like any other file on your computer and can be moved and saved to backup the same way. (EX: To DVD or 2nd drive)

RELATED LINKS:

SECTION ONE:
How to Create a Contact Group

1. Open the Contacts folder.
NOTE: See tip above for location.

2. Click on New Contact Group. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: To modify an existing Contact group list, just double click on it. To create a single Contact, click on New Contact instead.
A) If you do not see the New Contact Group toolbar button, then to restore it see:How to Restore the Missing "New Contact" and "New Contact Group" Button in Vista Contacts Folder

B) To change the columns or sorting order, see: How to Change the Windows Explorer Columns in Vista

C) You can also organize the Contacts and Contact Groups into different folders. Just create a new folder and add the contacts into it.
NOTE: They will still all be listed separately in the TO: area in a email compose window. (See screenshot below step 8 in SECTION TWO)

3. To Delete a Contact or Contact Group -
A) Right click on the contact and click on Delete.
NOTE: If this does not work for some reason, then you can drag and drop the contact into the Recycle Bin as a workaround.

4. Type a name and any details for the group of contacts. (See screenshots below)

5. To Add Contacts to the Contact Group -
A) Click on the Add to Contact Group button. (See screenshot above)

B) Select a existing contact and click on Add. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: This only copies the existing contact into the contact group. It does not remove or delete it.

C) Repeat until you have all of the contacts you want added to the group.
NOTE: If you delete a existing individual contact, it will also be removed from any Contact Group(s) that you added it to. The only way to prevent the contact from being removed from the Contact Group is to do step 5 below and use the Create for Group Only option.

6. To Create a New Contact for the Contact Group -
A) Click on the Create New Contact button. (See screenshots below step 3)
NOTE: This will also add the new Contact as a normal contact in the Contacts folder. To add new people to the contact group without also adding them to your individual contacts, type the appropriate information in the Contact Name and E‑Mail boxes, and then click Create for Group Only.

B) Type in the contacts information and click on OK when done. (See screenshot below)

7. Click on OK when done.

SECTION TWO:
How To Use a Contact Group in Windows Mail

1. Open Windows Mail.

2. Click the Contacts icon (button) on Windows Mail toolbar, or click Tools and click Windows Contacts. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: You can also click on Create Mail on the toolbar and go to step 5 to select a Contact Group to send a new message to.

3. Click on a contact group you want to use to highlight it. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: This email will be sent to everyone in the contact group. To pick and choose who you want to send to from the contact group, see step 9 and 10 below.

4. Click on the E-Mail icon (button) on the tool bar to open a compose an e-mail window with that contact in the To: field.
NOTE: To change the columns or sorting order, see: How to Change the Windows Explorer Columns in Vista

5. To Add a Contact or Contact Group -
A) Click on one of the recipient buttons To: , Cc: , or Bcc: (See screenshot below)
NOTE: You can use Bcc: to send to the group without revealing their addresses. Just put your address in the To: field and the group in the Bcc: field. If Bcc: is not listed, then see: How to Add the Bcc Recipient to the Compose An Email in Windows Mail

6. Select the contact or contact group, and click on the recipient button To: , Cc: , or Bcc: that you want to add it to in the compose message window.
(See screenshot below step 8)

7. Repeat step 6 until you have all of the contacts you want to send this email to listed in any of the recipient boxes.

8. Click OK when done.
NOTE: To change the sorting order of the contacts, click on a column name until you have it listed in the order you want. For example: If you click on the Name column, it will change from Ascending or Descending alphabetic order and from (First Name, Last Name) to (Last Name, First Name) order.

9. To Pick and Choose who to Send To from the Contact Group -
NOTE: Have a compose email window open with a selected contact group, then:
A) Close the compose email window.

B) Click on Yes to save the email to the Drafts folder. (See screenshot below)

C) Click on OK. (See screenshot below)

D) Click on the Drafts folder and then open this email message.
NOTE: Double click the email or right click it and click Open.

E) You can now delete the contacts in the group you do not want to send the email to. (See screenshot below)

10. To Pick a Single Contact to Send To from the Contact Group -
A) Open Contacts and select and open a Contact Group.

B) Right click on any one contact and click on Action and Send e-mail. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: This will open a compose message window with the selected contact in the TO: field.

11. Send your email when ready.

That's it,
Shawn

**Brink** · 09-20-2007

Updated.

Shawn

allenmayo · 11-16-2007

with windows xp I could take a name such as mathew barlow and write red in the nickname box .When creating a new email all I had to do was click r and red would appear in the to box .I would continue with initials such as rm,russ,freckles,etc.I cannot do this with windows vista .why

**Brink** · 11-16-2007

Hi Allenmayo,

Welcome to the forum.

You can sort of do this in Windows Mail (WM), but it does not work very well. WM will only remember up to the last 29 email addresses in it's Autocomplete. To turn this feature on in WM:
1. Click Tools - Options
2. Click Send tab
3. Check Automatically Complete E-mail addresses when composing
4. Click OK.

The free Windows Live Mail autocomplete feature works a whole lot better. It supports Pop3, IMAP, HTTP website (EX: Hotmail) email, and is a lot more stable. Plus, WLM will minimize to a tray bar icon and has a separate Inbox for each account. WLM will automatically import Windows Mail messages, accounts, and settings into it. Contacts will have to be manually imported from within WLM. (Tools, Contacts, File, Import, Address book for current Windows User.) To see the Menu bar, press ALT+M and check "Show all menus".

For 32 bit and 64 bit Vista: Windows Live Suite Downloads

Shawn

spahn · 01-15-2008

In Windows Contacts, when I print out the address book, the fields that do not have any data in them, print with the word (null).

It happens in all the Home Address and Business Address fields. So if I don't place the Zip Code or the Country/Region data, it will print out with the word (null). Aside from going in to all my contacts and placing USA in the country code, is there any way to prevent the word (null) from printing.

thanks for the help.

**Brink** · 01-15-2008

Hi Spahn,

I do not have a printer so I cannot test this, but changing the Print Style to a different one may help. (EX: Memo, Business Card, or Phone List)

Shawn

Emilio2000 · 03-25-2008

I have over 20 different Groups set up in my Address Book. In the good old Outlook Express Address Book, I could open a Contact and in the "Other" tab, I could see a list of all the Groups that the person belongs to.

In Windows Mail Contacts. I successfully imported all my Contacts and Groups. But. is there a way to find out which Groups a person belongs to? It's too time consuming to manually search through each of my 20 groups.

The Help section claims that Windows Mail has all the features of Outlook Express. but the list of Groups a person belongs to is obviously missing. It looks like Microsoft is selling us a degraded product ("Address Book Minus" instead of "Address Book Plus") and is calling that an improvement!!!! HA!

Please prove me wrong. Show me that I can display a list of Groups for each person. I rely heavily on Groups. Just for example, if I have multiple entries for the same person (with different email addresses), I can tell which one is the most current by looking at which email address is part of a recently set up Group.

If Microsoft Mail is unable to show me a list of Groups for any one individual Contact, is there a way I can continue using Outlook Express under Windows Vista Ultimate x64?

Emilio

**Brink** · 03-25-2008

Hi Emilio,

I cannot think of a way to do a search of all contact groups for anything in particular without having to open each contact group. You might also post this in the Vista Mail newsgroup to see if someone may know of a way that we are overlooking.

Sorry OE cannot run in Vista, but Outlook 2003 or newer can.

Wish I had a better answer for you,

Shawn

adisonsmum · 04-24-2008

okay .. have tried all the options available but still seem to be having the same prob on FIL's peice of junk vista laptop!

(sorry vista fans!).

Have set WM as a default, BUT when I try and create a new contact in the mai list (or modify and existing one). It goes to bring up the screen BUT the screen doesnt come up - it goes to come up and then dissappears!

any other ideas ? I am at FIL's place for another 48 hrs and then wont see them or this stupid lappy for 2 months or more so would like it fixed before then.

.. and dont think I havent thought about reformatting the whole damn machine!! or swapping him over to OE

Emilio2000 · 04-24-2008

Is there any way to backup Groups, and also synchronize the Contact (including Groups) on two computers?

Exporting Contacts does not preserve Groups.