Ghost 'Address book' entries in Outlook?

[jsteph]

Sometimes I'll type in an address to a new message, and Outlook will autofill that full email address, or give a list of possibilities. The problem is--these items are not in my Contacts or Address book. I want to edit them, but can't because they are ghostlike--they don't seem to exist anywhere--and I can't even make them go away.

I would like them to be officially in Contacts and/or Address book but there are a few problems:
1. It's a pain to enter them--and if they're already 'somewhere' why should I have to enter them again?

2. When I did go to the trouble of entering some of these ghost entries into Contacts, now they show up twice--the 'ghost' entry, and the 'official' entry.

3. Someone suggested that when a list pops down, that I can select an item and hit 'Delete'. That seems to work *if there's a list* but if it's just one, I can't make that go away.

Can someone please shed some light onto these 'ghost' entries?

 

[smah]

This is called the nickname cache and different versions of Outlook store it in different formats.

Outlook 2K and earlier:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/242074/en-us

Outlook XP (2002) and later:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287623/en-us

 

[jsteph]

Thanks, that is good to know where that is in case it's corrupted, but mine isn't corrupted (yet)--I'd just like to automatically put them into the address book so I don't have to manually do it.

I recall an option that was something to the effect of "automatically create address book entry for everyone I reply to". I looked in the monstrous labirynth that is the Outlook Options Dialog, and, as usual when I look in there, I came out more confused than I was before.

Do you happen to know where that setting (if it exists) is located for Outlook 2003?
Thanks,
--Jim

 

[smah]

I'm not sure this exists in Outlook (It doesn't seem to in Outlook 2000 & I don't have 2003 here), but I know that it does in Outlook Express. Maybe the quickest way to add to your contacts from an existing e-mail is to right-click on the from address & 'add to contacts'. There's no way to add the existing nickname cache to your contacts.