What I did...
I had a working version of Outlook 2000. on various OS 98, 2000pro, XPpro
and Vista Home Premium. All did what it says on the box. I tried thunderbird
on the XP system but returned to Outlook..
What I did wrong was to try the Office 2007 trial because since then my
Outlook 2000 has not worked correctly.
So... before I started the trial I exported my folders to a pst file as I
had done when changing OS's in the past thinking that I could at least
restore my folders to the state before the trial, (even though I would lose
messages received during the trial period).

However after Uninstalling the MSO 2007pro I then reinstalled Outlook 2K
which I had deactivated from the Office 2Kpro CD being marked as
unavailable, (was this my mistake all along) as when 2007 was removed it
wasnt able to reinstate my Outlook 2K.

I have since your reply "Opened" a personal folder from a backup pst and
this displays the contacts but I still cannot access that folder as my
contacts in any new message.
I have tried to select it under the Activities tab of File/Properties after
"clearing all" but it seems to have no effect.
Trying to delete the first level Personal folders is impossible.
So I seem to be stuck with a contacts folder that just gives me a cryptic
error message of "Unable to display the folder, could not complete the
operation, one or more parameter values are not valid".

thanks, Trevor

"Trevor" wrote in message
...
after trial of office 2007 I decided it wasnt for me so I reinstalled
Office
2k and all works fine except I cannot get the contacts folder to display
its
contents. so can't access it when typing new message.
I have tried uninstalling and reinstallation, to no effect, althoiugh each
new installation manages to find all my messages and folders (strange) I
was
expecting to find a blank Folder with just the outlook welcome message and
then import my pst file.
It would seem 2007 version is taking over, NOT what I expect from a trial
from Microsoft. Maybe I should try Thunderbird again.