Outlook XP - Changing "Select Names" order driving me insane

[Brette]

This is driving me crazy. In previous versions of Outlook when composing a
new mail message you'd click "To" and it would bring up a list of your
contacts in the "Select Names" dialog. All versions of Outlook seem to be
defaulted to display the names in first name order (even if your contacts
folder view is set to be viewed last name first). In earlier versions if I
remember correctly you were simply able to click the "Name" column header in
the "Select Names" menu and it would resort the names by last name first and
Outlook would keep this setting subsequently. In XP I'm unable to click the
"Name" column header (it doesn't seem to be an active function) and there
doesn't appear to be any way to change this view. This is really a pain with
a sizable Contacts list as it's much easier to select names by last name
first. Does anyone know how to change this in XP? Any help would be greatly
appreciated. As a side note, you also don't seem to be able to adjust the
size of the "Select Names" dialog box so as to be able to view all
information for a contact without using the slider bar (dragging the edges
of the box also doesn't seem to be an available option). It's a minor
annoyance but with multiple email addresses for a contact it would be nice
to see all the way across to make it easier to send to specified email
addresses for contacts with multiple addresses. Thanks in advance,

Brette

 

[Brette]

Oops, sorry! After more extensive reading I found the answer to my primary
question regarding the "Select Names" display order in one of Russ' other
replies (in XP you go to account settings and change the address book view
there to display last name first). I apologize for not finding this answer
before posting but sometimes it's hard depending on the way the original
post question is titled). Thanks for posting a solution Russ! As an aside
though, I also had a question regarding resizing the "Select Names" dialog
box so you don't have to use the slider to view multiple email addresses for
a contact. I'm assuming this is one that is fixed and not subject to change,
but if anyone knows a way and feels like sharing my thanks go out to you.

Regards,

Brette

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

No. Unfortunately that's one of the major deficiencies of the Address Book
interface in Outlook 2002. It's not fixed until Outlook 2003.