''Windows Address Book'' was a component of

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

that lets users keep a single list of contacts that can be shared by multiple programs. It is most commonly used by

Outlook Express Outlook Express, formerly known as Microsoft Internet Mail and News, is a discontinued email and news client included with Internet Explorer versions 3.0 through to 6.0. As such, it was bundled with several versions of Microsoft Windows, from ...

. It was introduced with

Internet Explorer 3 Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 (IE3) is a graphical web browser which was announced in March 1996, and was released on August 13, 1996 by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and on January 8, 1997 for Apple Mac OS (see IE for Mac). It began serious ...

in 1996 and improved in subsequent versions. The ''Windows Address Book'' API can query

LDAP The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Directory servi ...

servers or read/write data to a local file. In

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

, ''Windows Address Book'' was replaced with

Windows Contacts Windows Contacts is a contact manager that is included in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11. It replaced but retains most of the functionality of Windows Address Book and worked with Windows Live Mail and the Vista v ...

Overview

The Windows Address Book is an application that has a local database and user interface for finding and editing information about people, making it possible to query network directory servers using

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Directory servi ...

. Other applications can also use the WAB.

Microsoft Office Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as cale ...

uses its own store for email messages. However, it can import contacts from the format. Microsoft Exchange /

Windows Messaging Windows Messaging, initially called ''Microsoft Exchange Client'', is an email client that was included with Windows 95 (beginning with OSR2)- 98 and Windows NT 4.0. In Windows 98, it was not installed by default, but was available as a separate ...

uses file for Personal Address Book.

Features

* Can store comprehensive contact information in tabs including personal and business information * Integrates with Outlook Express. * Programmable API to work with other applications. Applications can also extend functionality such as adding more tabs and fields to store additional custom information, or customizing the toolbar. * Can store contacts inside contact groups and folders. * Can selectively send email to contacts only in

plain text In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects (floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a limit ...

for additional security. * Can export and import cards to and from

vCard vCard, also known as VCF (Virtual Contact File), is a file format standard for electronic business cards. vCards can be attached to e-mail messages, sent via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), on the World Wide Web, instant messaging, NFC or ...

2.1 and CSV formats. Can also import from

LDIF The LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) is a standard plain text data interchange format for representing Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory content and update requests. LDIF conveys directory content as a set of records, on ...

and other formats. * Search for entries in the contact database, arrange contacts by first name or last name. * Automatically add contacts from received email. * Prints contact lists as '' memo'', ''

business card Business cards are cards bearing business information about a company or individual. They are shared during formal introductions as a convenience and a memory aid. A business card typically includes the giver's name, company or business aff ...

'' or ''phone list'' styles.

Security risk

In May 2000 the

ILOVEYOU ILOVEYOU, sometimes referred to as Love Bug or Love Letter for you, is a computer worm that infected over ten million Windows personal computers on and after 5 May 2000. It started spreading as an email message with the subject line "ILOVEYOU" ...

virus showed how the Windows Address Book could be part of an exploit to spread malicious software by accessing and sending email to a user's contacts. This approach has since been adopted by many commercial

spammers This is a list of individuals and organizations noteworthy for engaging in bulk electronic spamming, either on their own behalf or on behalf of others. It is not a list of all spammers, only those whose actions have attracted substantial independen ...

Outlook integration

One of the undocumented features of the Windows Address Book is integration with

. A

registry Registry may refer to: Computing * Container registry, an operating-system-level virtualization registry * Domain name registry, a database of top-level internet domain names * Local Internet registry * Metadata registry, information system for re ...

value has to be set at the following registry key location: Note: Users should back up the registry before making changes. :HKCU\Software\Microsoft\WAB\WAB4 A value named "UseOutlook" (if not present already) can be created with its value set to 1. After setting this value, Outlook Contacts are shared with the Windows Address Book. This feature works only up to Windows XP and Outlook 2003.

introduced with

does not support sharing contacts with Outlook. The above method works with any version of Outlook up to Outlook 2003, despite newer versions not including it as a configurable option in the user interface.

References

External links

More information on WABMSDN API Reference
Information about the WAB

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

. {{Windows Components

Address Book An address book or a name and address book is a book, or a database used for storing entries called contacts. Each contact entry usually consists of a few standard fields (for example: first name, last name, company name, address, telephone num ...