Outlook autosuggesting email recipient name

[dtw]

You know how in Outlook you can type the first three letters of the recipient's name and if it's someone you contact regularly it'll suggest the full name so you only have to hit tab?

Well I have a colleague whose name used to come up after I got as far as typing "CHA..." but now there's some second name that Outlook suggests ahead of my colleague. This second name is NOT someone I ever care to email (in fact I don't know where the name came from!) so how do I get Outlook to stop suggesting it, and ONLY suggest my colleague?

[commoner]

I suggest you simply open your address book and delete the offending address.........commoner .;-)

[Hippy]

Not as simple as that. The "autocomplete" list is at the following location:

c:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.nk2

where "username" is the computer logon account you use (such as "Administrator" or "Charles" &ct.). To find it in Windows Explorer you will have to activate "Show hidden files and folders" in Tools .. Folder Options .. View.

Once you open the Outlook.nk2 file in a text editor (notepad for example) you will see that it is a system file and not at all in plain text. However, you will see the autocomplete entries follow a pattern, and you can identify the one you want to delete. Whether deleting it in this list will mess up the rest of the list is down to how clever you are. There is no space here to explain the encoding of the list. I do not advise your messing with this file, but it is useful to know where it resides.

A better way to remove entries is to get the programme to do the autosuggestion, highlight but do not select the one to delete, and then hit the delete button. The entry stays in the list but is cleverly disabled.

[halfadaily]

I do the same as commoner....right click on the name in the contacts list, then delete. This always works.

[commoner]

...Hippy , it works perfectly for me (why wouldn't it?) and apparently for halfadaily (love the name ;-)) ..........the list can also be rearranged in various ways..open the address book then View/Sort by.........and try a different arrangement for the list............commoner.

IMHO Hippy's method of messing with system files is more than a tad dodgy.........;-(

[dtw]

Thanks all for these suggestions:

Commoner, I don't think the offending name is in my address book (if it had been, I think I would have tried what you suggest already, seemed the obvious route to start at) � it's the fact that it's a completely unfamiliar person that had me stumped in the first place.

Hippy - I'm not at that machine again until Monday but I'll try that then. (Don't worry Commoner, as it's a system file I'll back it up first before playing with it so if I foul it up I can at least put it back how it was: with a filename like that the only thing I could break would be Outlook, right? :-D)

[Hippy]

PLEASE !! Do not mess with the system file. I just gave you all that guff to show how the programme stores the autocomplete (NOT THE SAME AS ADDRESS BOOK)entries. Useful to know if you want to transfer it between machines.

The method I advocated involves invoking the unwanted autocomplete entry in a new mail and then pressing the delete key.

[dtw]

Sorry for the delay (two days off ill and then a week very busy!): thanks all, yes that did work (hitting delete while the suggestion is up).
...Kinda glad I didn't have to faff about in system files though :-D