...my address book came back empty.

Address Book: View Folders and groups (check) Make sure your contacts
aren't in Shared folder. If not, export your OL contacts to a CSV file,
saving it to your desktop Address Book: File Import Other address book
Point the import wizard to the desktop file.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear), working offline
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
AumHa VSOP & Admin; DTS-L.org


Richard T wrote:
Thanks. This seems to have worked - except that my address book came back
empty. However, all working now. How do you guys know all this stuff???

Is MS Outlook (or MS Office) also installed?

Do you have this Registry key?...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WAB\WAB4

If not, STOP; If so, is there a DWORD named UseOutlook (NB: no space) and
is its value set to 1 (one)?

If not, STOP; If so, Address Book is configured to share contacts with
Outlook, even if you don't use it (can happen with the install of
Office).
Change the value to 0 (zero), Address Book should be available to you and
all should be well. (If that DWORD is not present, don't create it, and
don't alter any other DWORD values.)

Note that any changes (additions, deletions, edits) made while sharing
was
enabled will not be available (displayed) in Address Book when sharing is
disabled.

cf. http://www.insideoe.com/files/wab.htm#share
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=191946
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
AumHa VSOP & Admin; DTS-L.org

Richard T wrote:
Hi,
After a PC crash yesterday, IE6 opens and will receive mail but I cannot
open the mail or create a new one. I get the message "There was an
error
opening this message. An error has occurred". Also all my contacts
have
disappeared and I get a message saying "Unable to open address book. The
address book may not be installed properly".
I've tried re-installing OE through Windows (XP) Add/Remove programmes.

What next??