deafult e-mail for contacts

[msnews.microsoft.com]

I just upgraded to office xp, and am having a problem with outlook 2002. I
checked the 'show folder as an e-mail address book' for my contacts page,
and said to show contacts first under tools/Address book/options.

The problem is that many of my contacts have more than 1 e-mail address. In
Outlook 2000, I had a default address set for each contact, and typing an
alias into the address bar of a new message would automatically send to the
default address for that alias. In Outlook 2002, I can't figure out how to
indicate a default e-mail for each contact, and instead seem to get multiple
entries in the address book for each contact, one for every e-mail, and one
for the fax number to boot!

Not having a default e-mail address is huge inconveinince becuase now if I
type an alias like 'john' or 'ben' into the address bar, Outlook can't
resolve it, and I have to click on the To: button and manually pick the
entry I want out of a long and repettetive list.

Any tips on how to restore the behavior I had before this 'upgrade' would be
much appreciated.

Thanks,

J...

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

The Outlook Address Book has never used a default email address. You must
have been using the Windows Address book before (IMO mode of Outlook
couldn't support the Outlook address Book so it used the Windows Address
Book engine).
Just use autocompletion. Once you populate the autocompletion cache, it will
work the same as what you were used to but you have to send a message to an
address at least once to populate the cache.