Outlook not creating .NICK file for user??

[shoemakerna]

I have a user that his Outlook is not saving his "autosuggest" when he logs out. As long as he stays in Outlook, the "autosuggest" is there. I checked his settings and it is checked to "suggest names while completing To, Cc, and Bcc fields."

I went into his account settings and renamed his old .NICK files so that Outlook would create a new one. However, Outlook is no recreating that file like it is supposed to. Is there a way to manually recreate this file, or did I do something wrong?

 

[smah]

The file for the nickname cache is .nk2 (Outlook 2002+). The only thing that comes to mind is to make sure the user has write permission to the directory where the nickname cache is stored.

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

 

[shoemakerna]

I went in to Outlook just to verify the version and it is Outlook 2003, however the "autosuggest" is saved as *.NICK?? I thought 2000 and newer were *.NK2?? I have tried renaming the file, deleting the file, manually creating a new file with the correct extension, and creating both extensions in the profile, and nothing has worked.

Anything else that I have missed that I could check??

 

[smah]

No, 2002 & newer are .nk2. Outlook 97 & 2000 are not stored the same way at all. I only have 2000 here, so I can't check, but if your version is saving the file as .nick then there must be a way to configure this. You could use the Windows Registry Editor to search for .nick to see if leads to any clues.

 

[shoemakerna]

Does anyone know where to look to configure Outlook 2003 to save to an *.NK2 or *.NICK??

 

[GVN]

smah is correct, they are NK2 files, not NICK. On an XP Pro box, they can be found under c:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.

GVN

 

[shoemakerna]

I know where to locate the .NK2 and .NICK files, but is there anywhere that you can actually configure Outlook to save to one or the other?

When I go to C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook, the folder has the .NICK files?? I know they should be .NK2, but why is it wrong.

 

[GVN]

I don't think so. I believe that the programmers that designed Outlook just decided to use that format; I don't think it's editable...

Try copying the same whateve.nick file to whatever.nk2 and then close Outllok, re-open it, and see if it makes any difference in how Outlook performs.

GVN

 

[smah]

I just searched this machine & it seems that Outlook 2000 and before uses the .nick format

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/245421

This setting is not in the Windows registry and is not configurable. If you're using Outlook 2003 and the .nk2 file is not being created, it might be time for a Detect and Repair.

 

[GVN]

Was this user upgraded from Microsoft Outlook 2000 Standard Edition, Microsoft Outlook 97 Standard Edition, Microsoft Outlook 98 Standard Edition, or Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 Standard Edition?

 

[shoemakerna]

I tried renaming the files from .NICK to .NK2 and it is still not working.

Have not tried the detect and repair yet, will do that today.

The user is in a thin client in a Citrix environment. So if Outlook was upgraded, it would've been upgraded on the servers and everyone would be having this issue.

 

[smah]

Is the user using any additional 'cleaner' software that might be deleting that file?

 

[shoemakerna]

No, there are no other cleaner softwares that are being used.

 

[GVN]

Try just deleting all the .NICK and .NK2 files, after saving them somewhere else of course, and then re-run Outlook. Hopefully it will rebuild a new one? See this on the steps to get it to rebuild the file:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/245421

GVN

 

[shoemakerna]

have already tried deleting all of the .NICK files (origional) and .NK2 files (manually created) and the restarting Outlook to rebuild the required files and still not working.

 

[GVN]

Reinstall Outlook then. Some problems can only be fixed by that method. I would follow this regimen:

1. Uninstall
2. Reboot
3. Re-install
4. Patch it up to current levels (

http://office.microsoft.com)

5. Reboot
6. Use.

 

[shoemakerna]

well, the problem is that he is in a citrix environment. the thin client has no hard drive, so nothing is stored on the computer. his software applications are hosted on one server and his tsprofile is stored on another. i would have to bring down approx 75-100 users to do that reinstall on the server.

i am going to try rebuilding his profile on the server to see if that helps...

 

[GVN]

My bad, you mentioned that but I just forgot about that little detail. Yeah, I would try the deleting the profile thing and see if that works out. You don't want to mess with reloading the server, unless other people start having the same issue...

GVN

 

[DelRen]

I had the same problem. What you have to do is delete the NICK file. Then go into Outlook and create a new message. Click on To: and when the contacts windown comes up highlight all his contacts and click To: then OK. All of his contacts will now be listed in the To: field. Click on the "Check Names" icon on the toolbar (the check mark next to the head). Close out the message and close outlook. This should create a new NK2 file. Next time you create a new message autosuggest should work. Hope this helps.