PPRuNe Forums - Address Book woes.

In The Beginning Was Windows Address Book and Outlook Express, And Life Was Beautiful And Peaceful.

Now I have a partially tamed Windows 8.1, Windows Live Mail, and Contacts and Life Is Hell.

In WAB I created some "groups" of e-mail addresses, such as my aero club committee members to whom I/we send bulk e-mails of business between us.

All I had to do in O.E. was click the "To" box against the required address line and my WAB showed up, from whence I selected the "group" of my choice. Easy.

Now - when I click the "To" line in Windows Live Mail I get an alphabetical list of all my so called "contacts" arranged in Christian Name order, and ..... NO groups, so I have to scoll through literally hundreds of names by Christian name for each and every one of the group of people I wish to address, and select each one in turn - takes a long time. I can find no command to list in surname, which would help at least.

Worse - some names have 2 or 3 e-mails against their entry in my WAB, and there is an option to select the "most preferred", which was the one that O.E would use in the "group" that I had created, now when I finally get to the name I require, all the e-mails listed against that name are shown, and none is "preferred" so not only do I have to remember the right one, sometimes I slip and select an old one no longer in use. ( yes, I could edit my WAB - one day )

My WAB is still as is, and the groups are also there, but they no longer appear in Windows Live Mail as a selection.

I'm looking for a suitable cave, near to a supply of firewood, and will take a blanket to communicate with the World. Easier.

I'm being exhorted to switch to Thunderbird by some of you - would that solve my problem if I did ?