In OWA, with Contacts selected, should anything show up? I have a 2003 server at SP2 running Exchange 2003 SP2, that I just installed today. Both server and Exchange are running in native mode. I'm trying to learn Exchange 2003, which is why this question might sound pretty basic. . . Anyway, at this point I'm interested in learning how to add contacts with external e-mail addresses and I'm confused as to why nothing is showing up. Now, I can use the find feature in OWA and find names of recipinets that I had created in ADUC ( one user and one contact with an external mail address ), but as I said, nothing shows up in the contacts list. Additionally, created a new group in ESM under Recipients->All Address Lists, and it's not showing up either. Checked RUS and it's set to Always Run. Sooo, what's the deal? What am I missing? Any help will be greatly appreciated! -Mike

Hi Mike, If you're selecting contacts down the left hand side of OWA then no, not if you're creating the contacts in AD (you'll see those in the global address list though). If you create the contacts in the mailbox you're logged into then you'll see them there. And if you want to create a group, create a distribution group somewhere in ADUC and then that'll appear in the global address list. Hope this helps, Mark

I guess I'm not understanding the difference between what I'm reading and what I'm seeing. The books make this sound like I just do this and do that and I'll see these contacts in the address book. I'm not seeing anything. I've got all the normal OUs that are there by default plus an OU I made called Admins. In the Admins OU I have 2 accounts. Both these accounts are members of domain admins, enterprise admins, schema admins, domain users and local administrators. I'm using one of these accounts to login into OWA, and I'm not seeing anything in the GAL. Additionally, I added a new contact to the same Admins OU. I'm not seeing that in the OWA address book, either. What am I missing? **But wait, there's more. I finally installed Office 2007, setup Outlook, connected to the my mail server, got the mail I sent to my mailbox, but guess, what. . . there's no contacts. Does everyone go through this? I don't recall Groupwise being this difficult getting something simple like contacts to show up for users. Please, what am I missing??

Hi Mike, You can have contacts, user accounts with mailboxes and distribution groups created in AD. These objects will appear in the Global Address List. You can preview what will be included in the Global Address List by going to ESM > Recipients > All Global Address Lists > Default Global Address List. Right click and choose properties. Now, the GAL is just an LDAP query against AD. you can see the filter that the LDAP query is using under "Filter Rules" on the screen you're looking at now. Click "Preview" and it will run that query. Now you should see the mail-enabled users, groups and contacts that you have created in AD. Opening up the Global Address Listin Outlook or OWA should show you the same thing (you may have to run a search in OWA though). If you are clicking on "Contacts" down the left hand side of Outlook\OWA, that isn't looking at the contacts in AD. That is looking at the contacts that you create in your mailbox (in the exchange database). Mark.

Mark, Thank You very much for all the effort you've put forth in trying to help me with this software. I've been looking at the ESM > Recipients > All Global Address Lists > Default Global Address Lists and hitting the preview button and, yes, I'm seeing all the accounts and contacts that I've created ( 3 accounts and 2 contacts with external mail addresses ). But when I'm in my Outlook 2007client and creating a new mail and I'm in the GAL I only see2 accounts ( the one I'm logged in as in Outlook and a standard "user" account) and 1 contact. My account that I'm seeing is in the Admins OU that I created. The account that I'm not seeing is also in the Admins OU that I created and aside from the user name is identicalto the first account. I just don't get it. If I select All Users from the drop down in the address book all 3 accounts show up. *shrug* Over the years, I've seen this same thing in production environments. Now that I'm seeing here too, I can only assume at this point that this is just how MS Exchange performs and move on to the next chapter. Again Mark, thank you very much for your time and help.

I'd guess at an offline address list problem. Are you using cached exchange mode? If so, in the address book in Outlook, where it says "Show Names From:", select "Global Address List", then right-click on "Global Address List" and select Properties. In the "Global Address List Properties" window notice the "The current server is:" is a local path. Somethinglike "C:\Documents and Settings\<YOUR.USERNAME>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\". If you go to that path in Explorer you'll see loads of files with oab extensions. Those make up the offline address book downloaded and cached by Outlook. Go back to the address book, select "All Users" from the "Show Names from the:" drop down list and then right-click and select properties. Notice the "The current server is:" now displays one of the domain controllers in your enviroment. So it looks like the "All Users", "All Groups" are direct queries against AD. If you are using Cached Exchange Mode then hopefully this has put you in the right direction. More information can be found about the offline address list ... well ... all over the internet but here's an MS article that should get you started: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841273. Hope this helps, Mark

Hi, Please understand that the Contacts list under Address Book in OWA is for user who created contacts on the localprofile not fetch from ADUC. General speaking, Outlook contacts are stored in your e-mail server mailbox, such as .ost, .pst or .pab. That is on the local profile not on Exchange server side. The contact created in ADUC, you can view it in GAL, All Contacts under All Address Lists via Outlook. That is the difference. Thanks Allen