display Reversed names of headers contact-list in imported Contac

[Anteaus]

Upgrading Outloook Express to Outlook 2003, and hit a problem in that the
imported address-book entries are listed with a word-reversal in their names.

This would seem to be due to another those infuriating examples of
'fruitmachine automation' so often found in Office. It is blindly assumed
that the addressbook entries are names of people (Westerners at that!) and
Outlook reverses the words to put (what it assumes to be) the Lastname first.

Problem arises when the entry isn't the name of a person, but for example a
company name or website address, or where the nationality in question already
has lastname first. In either of these cases the word-reversal turns the
entry to nonsense.

There is an Outlook setting for "Default 'File As' Order" under
Tools>Options>Preferences>Contact Options.. and you would think that
changing this to "First, Last" should fix things.... but it makes no
difference at all. Why, I'm not sure.

I have the same problem on Outllok Mobile on my WM5 phone, and would dearly
love to find a way to turn this behaviour off, so I could enter non-personal
phone numbers without the name being minced-up.

Any suggestions?

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

None. Imported Contacts have never abided by the settings you select for new
Contacts. I doubt Microsoft will ever address this. They haven't in over 10
years.

 

[Anteaus]

None. Imported Contacts have never abided by the settings you select for new
Contacts. I doubt Microsoft will ever address this. They haven't in over 10
years.

As I feared. :-/

I have found a workaround, which is to remove 'List Order' from the Contacts
View, and replace it by Fullname. If Fullname is the first View item then the
contacts are indexed on this, everything is in the correct alphabetic order,
and no "Reversed, words are." entries appear.

This seems to overcome the problem, though I would rate it as bodge rather
than proper fix, and I'm not yet sure if there will still be subtle issues.

Unfortunately, not possible on the phone though, as these options don't
exist. -unless anyone knows a registry hack?

Thx for reply anyway.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

This is mostly cosmetic stuff, not a "workaround" for the real problem.

 

[Anteaus]

This is mostly cosmetic stuff, not a "workaround" for the real problem.

This is true, although it at least makes the situation bearable for the user.

And, I must say I've never been a fan of Outlook. Outlook Express is IMHO a
vastly better piece of software. Just a pity it can't be used with corporate
systems or with smartphones.