Kristy Ogilvie wrote:
On Sun, 16 Dec 2018 14:52:35 -0000, Frank Slootweg wrote:

Kristy Ogilvie wrote:
On Sat, 15 Dec 2018 21:37:23 -0000, Frank Slootweg wrote:

Kristy Ogilvie wrote:
A friend's Windows Live Mail (version 16.4.3528.331 in Windows 10) has
reverted to a contacts list from 3 years ago. Any ideas how this
could happen and how to fix it? They live 500 miles away so I can't
see what's happened directly. It's not like it's just forgotten some,
it's put ones in that she'd deleted.

A bit of a long shot: It could be that your friend has accidentily
imported an old contacts list, possible even one in the old deprecated
(sp?) Windows Address Book (.wab file) format.

Let her check if she has a *Windows* Contacts folder *outside* Windows
Live Mail and if so, if that folder contains the correct contacts.

Her (Windows) Contacts folder - if any - should be in:

C:\Users\your_friend\Contacts.

If so, she could:

1. Export the current 'bad' list from WLM, just to have a backup to
return to.

2. Delete all contacts *in* WLM.

3. Import the good contacts from her (Windows) Contacts folder.

I do no longer have WLM - nor its predecessor Windows Mail - so I can
not give specific instructions, but from my notes I understand that the
Import can be done with:

(While in WLM File - Import - Windows Contacts...

Similarly for the Export in step 1.:

(While in WLM File - Export - Windows Contacts...

Hope this helps.

Thanks. How will she know if the one in C:\Users\your_friend\Contacts
is a good one?

(Windows) File Explorer will show the contents as a list of
name-adrress combinations.

For example for myself, it shows:

Frank Slootweg Frank.Slootweg@...

So it's easy to check whether the entry should be there and if so, is
still correct.

I don't have access to her machine just now and she's out, but on another forum I was told it's:
C:/Users/{USERNAME}/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows Live/Contacts/
not
C:\Users\your_friend\Contacts

The confusion is in the difference between the *Windows* 'Contacts'
folder and the 'Address book' *inside* Windows Live Mail.

The former is accessible to *any* Windows program. The latter is
*only* available to/within Windows Live Mail.

Having an address_book/contacts_list/whatever within a program is
rather stupid, but sadly that's how it is most of the time.

For example a contact can have a street address. That's not very
useful *in* a mail program, is it? But *outside* a mail program, i.e. as
part of Windows, it can be very useful, for the user, for other
programs, etc..

That's why on for example Android devices (smartphones/tablets) the
'Contacts' app/list is *seperate* from apps which might want to *use*
those contacts, for example 'texting'/SMS app, phone (call) app, email
app, instant messaging app, etc., etc..

However on Windows it's a mess and it's mostly each 'app' (program)
for its own, i.e. the email program (WLM in this case) and instant
messaging program (for example WhatsApp), each have their own non-shared
contacts lists, which hence have to be maintained seperately.

Looking on my own machine, only the 2nd one exists (and is empty), but
I've never set up Live Mail.

Your contacts list is probably *inside* Opera Mail. I.e. equally
stupid as the one in WLM, the one in Thunderbird, the one in ..., ad
infinitum.

In Microsoft's defense, they *tried* to do the right thing with the
'Windows Address Book' (in earlier Windows versions) and the Windows
'Contacts' folder [1], but apparently could not convince/force programs
to use those, not even their *own* WLM software.

[1] I am not quite sure when the 'Windows Address Book' was replaced by
the 'Contacts' folder, nor whether the 'Contacts' folder is still a
standard part of recent/current Windows version. My Windows 8.1 system
has a 'Contacts' folder, but that folder may have been copied/restored
from my earlier Windows versions (XP and Vista).