GAL vs. *.PAB vs. *.OAB, lists and books

[s_rayhana]

I 'm a little confused and would appreciate your help.

1 - In win 2000, and Office 2000, The global address book, when downloaded
to the Laptop, is saved with the extension .OAB
for instance, the details.OAB file is the global address book saved on the
laptop. is this correct ?

2 - the .PAB file is the local address List (which is different form the
global address Book). The PAB may contain entries selected from the GAL but
they are different files, the GAL could be a much larger file. is this is
correct?

3 - Outlook documentation - and code samples refer to :
- Global Address List, as in the statement :
Set mGlobalAddressList = otlkNSpace.AddressLists("Global Address
List")
and
- Personal Address Book, as in the statement :
Set mGlobalAddressList = otlkNSpace.AddressLists("Personal Address
Book")
so what is a Book and what is a List?

4 - The documented procedure to import a global address book into the
Contacts folder : Files | Import & Export etc... expects a .PAB file and not
a .OAB file.
on my laptop, I do not have a .PAB file (or it is empty but has a size of 32
KB), then how to effectively import the Global Address Book (pardon List!)
into the Contact folder? (I tried to change the file extension from .OAB to
.PAB but the import failed.

I'm trying to print the Global Address Book that is on my Laptop (I could
use CDO as mentioned in several posting) but I could also use the Contacts
object which has several properties (more then a AddressEntry) if I can
import the GAL into the Contacts forlder.
Thanks for helping.
s_rayhana

[Neo [MVP]]

1] Actually the Offline address book is broken up into many .OAB files,
but your assumption is correct that a copy is stored on each machine when
configured for offline storage.

2] Possibly. (Size of site compared to how many people the person elects
to keep a record for.)

3] Just the naming convention MS decided to use. Just remember that each
"book" or "list" is a list of entries. The other thing to keep in mind is
that the Global Address List is read-only while the Personal Address is
yours to do with as you please.

4] You would have to use a 3rd party application or role your own that
could import the Global Address List into your personal contacts. See
http://www.connectedsw.com/AddressMagic.html . (Note: Writing your own is
very easy if you are familiar with CDO.)

s_rayhana <s_ra...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:uD9nBg4r$GA.272@cppssbbsa04...
: I 'm a little confused and would appreciate your help.

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