There is always a lot going on behind the scenes when Microsoft takes us from one version of Outlook to another. For the most part end-users are unaware of these changes until they become their victims. The unannounced split into two completely different mail support modes in Outlook 98 and 2000 comes to mind here. What a debacle that was.
There is another unannounced and undocumented transition underway in the last two versions of Outlook. Whether we want to or not, we are being migrated from “autoresolution” to “autocompletion.” Because these are also undocumented changes, confusion abounds. What follows is an attempt to mitigate the confusion.
Autoresolution has been and still is a feature in all versions of Outlook. Its purpose is to resolve any name typed in an address field of a new message (To, CC or BCC) to a valid e-mail address that resides in the user’s Contacts Folders. It uses the Outlook Address Book Service to search Outlook’s Contacts Folders for matches and presents these matches in a dialog box as potential recipients for the message. Because there was no autocompletion feature in versions of Outlook earlier than 2002, many users used autoresolution as a substitute for an autocompletion feature by creating and storing their own custom resolutions. That way they could type any name or nickname they wanted into a recipient field and Outlook would continue to resolve it to the address they had chosen for that name.
Outlook 2002 and 2003 have added a new autocompletion feature to Outlook but have also retained the earlier autoresolution feature. The coexistence of these two different features is awkward and confusing. It helps to understand the differences between autoresolution and autocompletion.
Autoresolution resolves the name you are typing in the address field of a new message (To, CC, or BCC) by searching through your Contacts Folders to provide you with the correct e-mail address. This feature is enabled by checking the box for “Automatic Name checking” in Tools > Preferences > Email options > Advanced Email options. To use this feature, follow these steps:
Autocompletion is a feature that is new in Outlook 2002 and 2003. As you begin to type a name in an address field of a new message, Outlook offers to complete the entry based on aliases or names from e-mail messages that you have previously sent. Note that this feature starts functioning immediately after you have typed the first three letters in the address field (or only one letter in Outlook 2003) and does not require that you Tab out of the field or hit CTRK+K. Also note that it does not use your Contacts Folder as its data source but rather a cache of information Outlook stores in the NK2 file that is created from the email addresses in messages you send. At first, the feature may appear not to be working since it takes a while for Outlook to populate its cache. The autocompletion feature is enabled by default when you install Outlook 2002 or 2003, but you can disable it by clicking “Options” on the “Tools” menu, clicking “E-mail Options” on the “Preferences” tab, and then clicking “Advanced E-mail Options,” then uncheck “Suggest names while completing…”
In Outlook 2002 and 2003, both autoresolution and autocompletion features exist. Since both features can be in play, it is easy to get confused as to whether you are using autocompletion or autoresolution. Just remember that autocompletion is in play as soon as you have typed 3 or more letters (or just 1 letter in Outlook 2003) in the address field and remains in play until you click out of the field or expressly invoke autoresolution by one of the methods listed above. As long as one of the names suggested by the autocompletion feature remains highlighted in the address field dropdown, tabbing out of the field will select that name as the sending address. Clicking out of the field will not, and then autoresolution will come into play. Also, if autocompletion finds no matches in its cache (and therefore suggests no names), then autocompletion is no longer in play and autoresolution will take over once you tab out of the field. In Outlook 2003, you can also invoke autoresolution at any time by hitting “Escape” while typing in the address field. Once autocompletion is no longer in play, then Outlook will try to resolve the name you enter against your various Contacts Folders, but not against the autocompletion cache. A name you manually resolve in this fashion will not be stored in the NK2 file. Microsoft is assuming that you will be content to use autocompletion to replace autoresolution. As soon as you send the message, the name and email address to which the message was sent will now be stored in the NK2 file and will appear in the suggested names dropdown from then on. So forget autoresolution. Embrace autocompletion. Microsoft knows what we want better than we do. Do not question it. Deal with it. Sure would be nice if they told us what was going on behind the scenes instead of making us figure it out for ourselves.