Kapothi Tech Blog

Disable the Offline Address Book – Updated Aug. 1 2008 for Windows Vista

1. Close Outlook.
2. Download the Disable/Enable Offline Address Book Scripts (ZIP)
3. From Windows Explorer, open (by double-clicking) the OutlookOABDownloadScripts.zip file from the location where it was downloaded.
4. Run (by double-clicking) the OutlookDisableOABDownload.vbs script. Note – in Windows Vista, right-click on the script and select “Run As Administrator” (your local IT support person may need to provide administrative credentials at this step).
5. If it runs successfully, you should see the following confirmation message:

At this point, Outlook will no longer automatically download the offline address book. However, if you click the “Send/Receive” button within Outlook, by default it will reset your offline address book setting – in effect it re-enables the offline address book. To prevent this from happening, complete the following steps.

Important You must exit Outlook before starting the following procedure. The names will be included in AutoComplete when you restart Outlook.

On the computer with the saved AutoComplete names, go to drive:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.

Note Depending on your file settings, this folder might be hidden. To view the files in this folder, do one of the following:

Microsoft Windows XP

1. Click Start, and then click My Computer.
2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
3. Click the View tab, and then, under Advanced settings, under Hidden files and folders, click Show hidden files and folders.

   Microsoft Windows 2000

1. 1. Double-click My Computer on your desktop.
   2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
   3. Click the View tab, and then click Show hidden files and folders.

2. Right-click profile name.nk2, and then click Copy.Tip You can copy the file to removable media, such as a floppy disk or a CD, and then copy the file to the correct location on the other computer. Or you can attach the file to an e-mail message and send the message to yourself. On the new computer, open the attachment in Outlook, and then save it to the correct location.
3. On the computer where you want to populate the AutoComplete feature, copy the file to drive:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.
4. If the Outlook user profile name is different on the computer where you are moving the .nk2 file, you must rename the file with the same Outlook user profile name after you copy it to the correct folder. For example, if you move Kim Akers.nk2 from the original computer with an Outlook user profile name of Kim Akers, and you copy the Kim Akers.nk2 file to the new computer, you must rename it with the Outlook profile name being used on the new computer.
5. When prompted about replacing the existing file, click Yes.
6. Open Outlook to view changes.

Outlook 2003 has an automatic completion for any email address that you try to type into the To or CC fields. This feature does not pull from the contacts or address book, because you may have tried to email somebody that wasn’t in your contact list, and it will still add that to the auto complete list.

The problem comes in when you put in a bad address, and then every time you go to type in the email address, the incorrect one appears in the auto complete list.

To fix this problem, there are two ways around this. The easiest way is this:

• Start typing in the address that shows up incorrectly.
• Hit the Down arrow key to select the auto completed address.
• Hit the Delete key to delete the auto complete address

The other way is by opening the profile folder and deleting the .nk2 file.

• Open up windows explorer, and paste the following into the address bar: %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Outlook
• Delete the Outlook.NK2 file that you find in this folder.