Tip 25: Sharing Contacts

By selecting a checkbox, you can share your Outlook 2000 contacts with the Windows Address Book when you use Internet Mail mode. If your version of Outlook doesn't have the checkbox in the interface, you can share the contacts by setting a registry key. It works with all versions of Outlook, including Outlook 2003 and with Exchange server accounts.

Two gotchas are:

1. It only shares the default Contacts folder
2. When the WAB (or Outlook Express) is in use, Outlook.exe loads and runs "hidden".

In Start menu, Run, type regedit to open the Registry editor and browse to this registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WAB\WAB4

Add a new DWORD named UseOutlook (if it isn't already present), and set its value to 1. To disable sharing, set the value to 0.