Recently my computer suffered a major problem and Windows XP was reinstalled. Before reinstalling Windows any important data from the computer was backed-up, including the Outlook 2003 Contacts which were exported to a flash drive. Two files were saved onto the drive, in a folder named ‘Address Book’: ‘Jills’ (description: Address Book File - 173 KB) and ‘Jills.wab~’ (description: WAB~ File - 173 KB). Since reinstalling Windows and Outlook 2003 I have been unable to open either of these files. Double-clicking on the ‘Jills’ file produces a new email message window, with the address book file as an attachment. Also, when I double-click to open the ‘Jills.WAB~’ file a message appears asking which program should be used to open the file. How can I import the address book into Outlook 2003?

It seems the Outlook contacts have been exported to a Windows Address Book (WAB) file. The full name of the ‘Jills’ file contained on the flash drive is ‘Jills.WAB’ - with the WAB file extension indicating the file is in the Windows Address Book format. The reason you cannot see the file extension is because the Windows option to hide file extensions for registered file types has been enabled. For clarity in this exercise, you may wish to disable this function, so you can see the file extensions. Open Windows Explorer or My Computer then go to the ‘Tools’ menu > ‘Folder Options’, click the ‘View’ tab and disable ‘Hide extensions for known file types’. Click OK to save and close. You should now see the .WAB file extension. The second file ‘Jills.WAB~’ is a backup of your Windows Address Book, as the tilde symbol after the file extension generally indicates that the file is a backup copy. We can ignore this file for the time being, as hopefully the original file is intact, but you should note such backup files can be used, should the original address book file be corrupt or otherwise inaccessible.

WAB files should automatically open in the Address Book program when double-clicked. However, when you double-click on the ‘Jills.WAB’ file an email message is opened, indicating the file association for WAB files is incorrect. Therefore, we need to reassociate WAB files with the Address Book program. Right-click on the ‘Jills.WAB’ file and select ‘Open With’ > ‘Choose Program’. Click the ‘Browse’ button and navigate to: C:Program FilesOutlook Express. Select the ‘wab.exe’ program and click ‘Open’. There should now be a new entry in the ‘Open With’ window named ‘Address Book’. Make sure that ‘Address Book’ is selected, then tick the box ‘Always use the selected program to open this kind of file’ and click OK. Now, whenever you double-click on a WAB file this should automatically open in the Address Book program. Once the ‘Jills.WAB’ file has opened, all your address book contacts should be displayed.

Now that the WAB file can be opened, the contents of the address book need to be imported into Outlook 2003. Outlook does not support WAB files, so you cannot use the WAB file with Outlook. However, it is possible to import the contacts of a WAB file into the Outlook Contacts folder or into an Outlook Personal Address Book file. I would recommend the contacts are imported into the Outlook Contacts folder, as this will provide the most functionality and will be the easiest to manage.

As Outlook does not support WAB files, it cannot directly import contacts from this file type. Therefore, we need to use Outlook Express as an intermediary in the import process. So, the WAB file will be imported into the Outlook Express address book, and then Outlook can import the Outlook Express address book. The first step is importing ‘Jills.WAB’ into the Outlook Express address book. Open Outlook Express. If this is the first time you have opened Outlook Express, you will need to go through the account setup procedure. The account information is not important, so don’t worry about entering valid information here - just enter anything so that Outlook Express will load. Once Outlook Express is running, go to the ‘Tools’ menu > ‘Address Book’. We now need to import ‘Jills.WAB’ into the current Outlook Express address book. In the Address Book window, go to the ‘File’ menu > ‘Import’ > ‘Address Book (WAB)’. Find the ‘Jills.WAB’ file and click ‘Open’. The contacts from ‘Jills.WAB’ should now import into the active Outlook Express address book. Make sure that all the contacts are located in the ‘Main Identity’s Contacts’ group, as Outlook will only import address book entries from this group. You can see the current group in the left-hand folder pane (if this is not visible, go to the ‘View’ menu > ‘Folders and Groups’).

The next step is importing the Outlook Express address book into Outlook 2003. Make sure Outlook Express is closed, then open Outlook 2003 and go to the ‘File’ menu > ‘Import and Export’. In response to ‘Choose an action to perform’, select ‘Import Internet Mail and Addresses’ and click ‘Next’. Then, under ‘Select the Internet Mail application to import from’ select ‘Outlook Express 4.x, 5.x, 6.x’. Tick (enable) ‘Import Address book’ and untick (disable) ‘Import Mail’ and ‘Import Rules’. Click ‘Next’. Select your preference for duplicate items in the address book. If the Outlook Contacts folder is empty, you should be able to leave it at the default setting without encountering any conflicts with duplicate entries. Once you have selected your preference, click ‘Finish’ and the address book will be imported into the Outlook Contacts folder.