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| Windows Contacts | |
|---|---|
 | |
 Contacts folder insideWindows Explorer, showing example contacts. | |
| Developer | Microsoft |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Predecessor | Windows Address Book |
| Successor | People |
| Website | windowshelp |
| Windows Contacts | |
|---|---|
| Filename extension | .contact |
| Internet media type | text/x-ms-contact |
| Developed by | Microsoft |
| Type of format | electronicbusiness card |
| Container for | contact information |
| Extended from | XML |
| Website | Windows Contacts |
Windows Contacts is a legacyspecial folder used forcontact management that is included inWindows Vista,Windows 7,Windows 8,Windows 10, andWindows 11. It replaced but retains most of the functionality ofWindows Address Book and works withWindows Live Mail and the Vista version ofWindows Mail for legacy purposes.
Windows Contacts uses anXML-based schema format. Each contact appears as an individual.contact file, in which custom information including pictures can be stored. Windows Contacts featuresextensibility APIs for integration with other applications and for storing custom information. The legacy*.wab format and the open standards*.vcf (vCard) and*.csv (CSV) are also supported.
Although it’s incompatible with and functionally replaced by the newerPeople app and then later byOutlook (new), the folder still exists in the latest versions of Windows for backwards compatibility.
There is a known problem when exporting the Windows Address Book (*.wab) files to another PC. If the user has contacts organized into folders, this folder structure will not be preserved when the WAB file is imported. All contacts will be preserved, however, leaving some with a considerable task of manually reconstructing the folders and moving addresses back into their rightful places. See:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249670
A solution for Windows versions still using WAB files as their address book is to copy, not export/import, the WAB files to their correct location. This often preserves the folder structure. Unfortunately, in Windows Live Mail this does not work as WLM doesn't use WAB.
