Outlook Express Address Book fails to load

When I run Outlook Express the address book fails to load, I have renamed the Wab32.dll and then uninstalled and reinstalled but it still won't work. Does anyone have other options for me too try?

 

That isn't your address book. Look for *.wab, that should be your address book. When you say your address book doesn't load, not sure what that means? Have you tried repairing IE(OE) is tied to it. control panel, add/remove programs, look for IE, highlight, click add/remove, select the repair option.

This probably should be moved to the IE/OE forum.

 

Address book

When I go into outlook express folder everything is there, when I click on the address book [wab] it says it is not a valid file. I have uninstalled and installed several times. When I run Outlook express it says address book failed to load and to reinstall program. I ran the ie repair but did not fix.

 

Hi RickLee
Does OLEXP: Error Message: Address Book Failed to Load help at all?

 

Did you search for your address book? Did you do something to the address book, import/export/backup, before this problem occured? When you say you did an uninstall/reinstall, do you mean OE, or the wab32.dll? Where did you put it? Most current version of that file is 6.00.2800.1123. This is OE6?

 

An associated problem.. I have an exported address book that won't 'import' back in after restoring my OS... same versions of Express and W98..???? Maybe I didn't 'export' it, but just copied the .wab file, I forget (it took me a whole week to do the restore after replacing a failing hard drive..

 

RickLee--Did searches on www.google and came up with (too many?) ideas.
Here is a thread that (in about the fourth post--you have to click Next at the bottom each time) indicates a solution for one person anyway.
http://www.newagtalk.com/_disc15/00000215.htm
If that does not work, you should have a file named yourname.wa~. This is a backup for your Address Book. Make a copy, change the file extension of the old Address Book from .wab to .old, and change the name of the copy of the .wa~ file to yourname.wab. Reboot. Does the Address Book now load? If it loads, but no addresses in it, perhaps you can restore them using the ideas at the bottom of this post.
If still no luck, here are ideas for creating new Address books
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/tips/morewabs.htm
Lots more on the .wab file here
http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-...ab&sp-a=sp022c5400&sp-p=any&sp-f=Windows-1252
Or you could go to the Tomsterdam's home page and search on Address Book.
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com
P.S. Any particular reason why you played with wab32.dll when this problem started? Did you have an error message mentioning wab32.dll?

abbeyhurst--Of possible help
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com//backup/simple.htm
More ideas here, but it may be too late since you did not copy as indicated
http://www.iopus.com/guides/oe-backup.htm

 

Thanks Jim - I'm afraid it's too late.. I must have just copied the .wab file thinking I could replace the 'new' OE address book when I reinstalled IE/OE but it won't accept it.. thnx for the tip tho'..

 

abby,
You still should be able to use it if its *.wab format. Do you have it on a floppy? If so, open windows explorer, navigate to windows, application data, microsoft, address book. Look if you have a wab file there.(the icon should be the address book) Since your install is new, wherever this copy is, right click and hold, drag it to the above folder, release, select copy. If it doesn't work, then just delete it.

If you didn't upgrade your IE/OE, then this may have happen to you.

If you uninstall OE5.01 or OE5.5 and then reinstall Win98, your WAB will be inaccessible. Upgrading to at least version 5.01 will allow you to access the WAB again. If that is not possible or desirable, you will have to copy your *.wab file to a machine running 5.01 or higher and export your contacts to a text file of type *.csv (comma separated values). You can then import that file into the OE5.0 WAB.