Um, when you write an e-mail, you DO get a drop-down list to select
which folder from which to display contacts. In the list of contacts,
just use the drop-down listbox to select the folder that has the type of
contacts from which you want to select. That's the point of having
folders within the address book: to organize your contacts. You want
separate address books to organize your contacts. The same can be done
with folders.

I don't see how it is anymore "messy" to have multiple folders in a
single address book which can be used to separate different categories
of contacts versus a somehow cleaner setup of using separate address
books to separate different categories of contacts. Whichever is used
would still result in having a drop-down list in the contacts selection
dialog where you would either select a different folder or a different
address book.

OE supports LDAP for contact directories but I never got into using
LDAP. I didn't feel like figuring out to implement an LDAP server to
use that to store contacts (and which would be accessible by multiple
users within the same organization accessing the same LDAP server).

When you do your reformats or OS installs, obviously you must be saving
your data files in backups so they can be restored in your new setup.
So the Windows Address Book that has multiple folders used to categorize
your contacts will still have those folders when you restore that .wab
file from your backups.


"John Cutler" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the reply. Sounds messy -- too bad Microsoft doesn't
provide an
easy way to maintain and use multiple address books. It **could** be
so
simple - a drop-down menu for selecting the "default" address book (if
there
is more than one) and an option for "Create a new address book..." The
"mistake" is having the address book listed in the Registry.

The organization's email list came to us from the group's director(?)
so we
could send emails to the group. My wife just suggested another option.
If she
wants to send an email to the group, she can send it to the director
who can
forward it to the group. That way, the group email list will exist in
only
one place, the director will keep it up to date (adds and drops) and
Norma
won't have outdated email addresses on her computer that are all mixed
in
with her personal email addresses....

John

"VanguardLH" wrote:

You could create a *subfolder* in your personal WAB (Windows Address
Book). That would separate your personal contacts and those from
your
organization. Then you would have to select from which address book
to
list contacts when you composed a new or reply e-mail. In OE, when
composing a new e-mail, click on the To button to show your address
book. Then use the drop-down listbox (right above the contacts list
pane) to select contacts from whatever [sub]folder you want.

You can use the same address book but organize your contacts by using
subfolders under your account. One deficiency is that when you
import
into your WAB that it only imports into your account (the top-level
node
or folder), so you'll have to do the import and then select all
contacts
in your root folder and drag them into a subfolder. Similarly, when
you
export from this WAB, all contacts from all folders get extracted
into a
single output file (i.e., the folders gets smashed into one folder).

Select the account folder (root node in the tree pane) under which
you
want to create a new subfolder. Then use the "File - New folder"
menu.
I have moved to Windows Live Mail (WLM) and having this organization
of
different contact types in the address book is something that I
really
miss since WLM has just one contacts list. It was a poor choice by
Microsoft to throw away the Windows Address Book or, at least, not to
include it besides the embedded Contacts list in WLM.

"John Cutler" wrote ...
In addition to my regular email address book (Outlook Express, XP
Pro)
which
contains my personal email addressses, I would like to create a
separate
address book to hold addresses for members of an organization.

I don't want to add 200 or 300 names to my personal address book
that
only
get used to send email to members of the organization.

Is it possible to create a separate address book and then select
which
address book to use when sending email?

For example, my personal book is named John.wab. The second book
might
be
named Green.wab, and on some dropdown menu I would have the options
to
select
John or Green -- for addressing emails, updating names, etc.

Can this be done?

-----------

Or maybe a better question would be: how can I maintain **two
separate
email
address lists** for Outlook Express 6 in XP Pro?

Is it possible to "partition" a single address book so that it
actually
contains two separate lists?

I don't understand "identities" well enough to risk trying it....!

If I import a .CSV file with the organization's email list, can I
confine it
to the "Green" identity?

Thanks, John