Mail merge ‘unable to display Contacts’ (OL2K/sr-1)

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Am trying to merge Outlook Contacts into Word in a Word mail merge. Under Data source: Get Data, I choose Outlook Address Book, and then choose the Contacts folder. Am getting a MAPI Error message “The Contacts folder associated with this address list could not be opened; it may have been moved or deleted, or you do not have permissions. For information on how to remove this folder from the Outlook Address Book, see Microsoft Outlook Help.” If I try to use the Insert Address Button on my toolbar, I can select from the global address list, but when I try to open my Contacts folder I get a Microsoft Exchange message very similar to the one above, but it starts with “Unable to display the contents of this address book. The Contacts folder …” and ends with Microsoft Exchange Client – [80040201].

My Contacts folder is marked as an Outlook address book, I am the owner and have even tried adding myself to the permissions page and giving myself “Owner” permissions, and we have even tried removing my Exchange Profile from the machine altogether and re-set it up again, but that still did not work. I can access a Public contacts folder just fine, but not my own Contacts folder or any of its sub-folders.

Help! It’s happened to at least four users in our office so far, so it’s not just me. We’re moving mailboxes from one mailbox store to another one or to a different storage group, and mine has been moved, but at least one of the users with the problem hasn’t been moved.Anyone run into this before, or have any suggestions? As usual, any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated!

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Try it in reverse. In Outlook, go to your contacts folder and start a mailmerge from the tools menu.

I have this problem with XP as well. If you start in Outlook, you’ll be successful.

One more thing – the zip code wont come over automatically, you need to map the field in Word.

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You were correct. It did still work in Outlook. However, what solved the problem was the answer in the next post. Thanks for your help.

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The solution below comes from an MSKB article and it worked for us. Before going through all this you might try creating a new profile; it could just be some corruption in the profile.

The error occurs because of the order in which the Outlook Address Book was added to the profile selected during the data source selection process.
RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem, create the user profile manually, making sure the “Outlook Address Book” is added first.

To configure the Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook Windows NT client so that more than one person can use the client on the same computer, perform the following steps:

Click the Start button, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click Mail. Click the Show Profiles button if it appears in the dialog box that is displayed. If a Show Profiles button does not appear, proceed to step 2.
Click Add.
Click Manually Configure Information Services, and then click Next.
Type a name for the profile in the Profile Name box, and then click Next.
Click Add, click Outlook Address Book in the list of available information services, and then click OK.
Click Add, click Microsoft Exchange Server in the list of available information services, and then click OK.
Type the name of the Microsoft Exchange Server computer to which you want to connect in the Microsoft Exchange Server box, type a mailbox name in the Mailbox box, and then click Next. Note that you can click Check Name before you click OK to verify the server and mailbox names.
After the Outlook Address Book and Microsoft Exchange Server services are added, additional services may be added to the profile by selecting Add and selecting other services in the list of available information services, and then click OK.

After the profile is created, start Outlook and ensure the Contacts folder(s) is included in the Outlook Address Book. To do this, perform the following steps:

On the View menu, click Folder List.
In the Folder List, right-click the Contacts folder, and on the context-sensitive menu, click Properties.
Click the Outlook Address Book tab, and click to select “Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book.” NOTE: Your Contacts should appear in the “Name of the address book” box.
Click OK.
Your Contacts are now available as part of the Outlook Address Book.

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Hallelujah! That solved it. What we can’t understand is what happened to cause it not to work. It was still working last month, and we’d all been using various forms of it. At least we know what to do to fix it now. Thank you very much. My colleagues think I’m a miracle worker, and it’s all due to you folks in the Lounge.

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