Sharing Outlook contacts, etc

[OrangeHair]

I just got a new desktop computer. I would like my wife and I to be able to use Outlook 2007 to check our 2 hotmail accounts. I would like to have a common contacts and calendar. As far as I can tell I have 2 options:

1) Create 2 separate computer accounts. Obviously both will be able to launch Outlook separately but won't share anything, i.e. contacts.

2) Use 1 computer account, 1 Outlook but simply add 2 hotmail emails. The problem with this is that you have to specify a default email account, i.e. she may accidently send an email from my account.

Any suggestions?

 

[Palladio]

Try creating a third email address (in Hotmail, Gmail, whatever). Store all your contacts and calendar items in that account, but don't use any of the email functions. This will be the "shared" archive of contacts and calendar items. Then go with your option 1, and add the third email account as a secondary email account in both Outlook profiles. This solves the "send as yourself" issue. You can easily drag/drop contacts and calendar events between the two email accounts in each profile.

Hope this helps.

 

[Palladio]

I just realized that you don't have to create a whole separate computer account, if you don't want to. You can create multiple profiles in Outlook.1. Go to the Control Panel2. If it's not in Classic view (with a lot of icons), then click on the "Switch to Classic View" link in the upper left corner3. Double-click on the Mail icon
4. Click on the Show Profiles button
5. Click the Add button, and add the second email account as you normally would
6. Back on the screen listing the profiles, select the button next to Prompt for a profile to be used

This will let you have two profiles in Outlook, one for you and one for your wife. To switch from one to the other, just close Outlook, and then re-open it. You will be prompted again for which profile to open.

 

[RockyBalboa]

If you have outlook on one computer, but want the exact same program (contacts, calendar) on another computer, is there a way to do it?

Right now in our office eveyone has to go use the one computer with outlook on it.

 

[Palladio]

Rocky-

It depends on what kind of email you use. If you use a web-based email (like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo), then you can just have everyone log in to the website. If you're using a POP3 email or Exchange email (and assuming there is no web interface to either one), you would have to have Outlook installed on all the computers that want to access it. If you're looking for a new mail system, Gmail is good because you can also use Google Calendars with it. Plus it saves all your contacts.

So, either everyone needs Outlook, or you need a web-based email so that everyone can check it through a web browser.