Contacts Folder

I don't recall any Contacts folder... not saying it didn't exist, but it's probably been a long time. There is now a People app, have you tried using that?

You can still use the Windows Contacts folder but you'll need to create contacts manually or import contacts from a VCard file, and use a 3rd party email client.

Oh, right... THAT contacts folder. Now I remember.

IIRC this was like an XP-era feature designed to integrate with Outlook Express and the like.

Yes, I do notice it has a virtual shell folder, with various options. There is likely a way to re-register this shell extension, but a quick google did not turn anything up... Maybe someone else can come up with the dll to register.

Edwin said:

You can still use the Windows Contacts folder but you'll need to create contacts manually or import contacts from a VCard file, and use a 3rd party email client.

Have you installed the Creators update? I ask because the only explanation I have is that my installation of the Creators update eliminated "Contacts"

That's what my "C:\Users\xxx\Contacts" used to look like, with all the options for import, export, etc.

Now for me it just looks like a regular empty folder.

If someone has Creators, can you confirm?

Mystere said:

Oh, right... THAT contacts folder. Now I remember.
IIRC this was like an XP-era feature designed to integrate with Outlook Express and the like.
Yes, I do notice it has a virtual shell folder, with various options. There is likely a way to re-register this shell extension, but a quick google did not turn anything up... Maybe someone else can come up with the dll to register.

XP had an address book, basically a file with a .wab extension, so the "Contacts" feature that you see in Edwins post came sometime after.

I jumped straight from XP to Windows 10, was able to import/convert that backed up .wab file into "Contacts".

I got the Creators update about a week ago, and a few days later realized the Contacts folder had changed, so it either happened at that point or due to another fairly recent Windows cumulative update.

That's what I'm trying to confirm. As you discovered, there isn't anything out there addressing this.

Looks like I'm going to need another option, probably a third party contacts manager, that I can easily sync my phone contacts with via .vcf, in both directions.

I've checked out a few, maybe someone would like to recommend something?

dalchina said:

Well, there's something I've never used, but does exist still:
Thus it is a relic, presumably provided so people can't complain about losing data stored there.

Perhaps somewhat confusingly there's this:
- which I would guess does not make use of that folder, rather the People app's data.
I would, however, have concerns about the security (or complete lack of it) of the data in that folder.

Yeh, I suspect the developers had the same opinion of this "relic", and it wasn't secure,

The Peoples app is completely separate and poorly conceived, IMO, thats why I'm looking for a substitute.

thanks

Caledon Ken said:

My wife was using Companion Link. It was okay but plenty of sync failures.

In essence we use "People" on our outlook.com web accounts as the book of record. On our pc we use Outlook 2013. Without the use of a third party we can change contact info on PC, or web or phone and they all sync. I have an iPhone and she has old Android Samsung Galaxy.

I have one Outlook.com account and I just use it for data, people, tasks, calendar.

Could I pry a little and ask what is you don't like about the People app?

It's been a while since I tinkered with it. I just tried it again. From what I remembered, with my over 400 contacts, it was quite a chore scrolling thru that interface. I dont remember having to sync it with an email account before to import contacts, but that's the only way It appears to work now. I tried to hook it up to my gmail, but it wont let me copy/paste my password from my password manager into the field (why do they do that?), and the password is hidden once you type it in (why do they do that??), and with my 20 character password, I guess I made an error that couldn't be seen, so I don't feel like fighting that all day (sheesh!), and once I do manage to set it up, it'll be an automatic login to my email, but I dont want that kind of easy access to my email from the desktop, I prefer to access it from my browser using my password manager.

I've had a lot of frustration keeping a clean phone contact list. No matter how I try to set it up, it gets mixed up with my gmail contacts, and I end up in a mess of multiple entries for the same contacts which destroys voice calling attempts, and complicates manual selection. I need a contact manager list that will maintain a pristine, single entry list, with only phone numbers.

That old contact list did that, but it was far from perfect. I could import on my phone just fine, but in the other direction, I could only import one contact at a time from the main file to the computer contact list.

Well, you asked. I'm out of breath.

If I'm doing it wrong, please tell me a better way to manage it, I'd appreciate it.