Most everyone likes to have their systems auto complete or auto resolve names of recipients as they type. It makes for a more productive working environment.

But sometimes your end users will find that auto complete is not working. Other users might be typing a partial name in the To: field but when they hit the tab button it will take a couple seconds or so to auto resolve the recipient’s name.

For the users that are having the problem of auto resolve not working it can be a more than frustrating experience. For those users, an administrator can have them manually prompt for an auto resolve by trying the Check Name button or by pressing the CTRL+K keystroke sequence.

Another area of potential trouble is the cache that is used with the automatic completion mechanism. When names are resolved as users type in recipient names there is a nickname list that is automatically generated and maintained by Outlook. This nickname list is used for both the automatic name checking and the automatic completion. The nickname list is a collection of all the email addresses that have been used for sending email that show up on the To, Cc or Bcc fields. This is one of the first locations that Outlook checks for name checking and name resolutions.

When your users are experiencing name completion problems or problems with name checking it can be caused by a corrupted name cache. Such problems can be manifested by misidentifications of recipients resulting in name resolutions which look like amalgams of company mergers and acquisitions. Other miscues can include incorrect recipient’s names being produced or, worse, messages actually being sent to unintended recipients.

If you are using Microsoft Windows XP and you suspect that the nickname cache is corrupted you can try to clean it out by following the steps outlined below. Make sure that Outlook is not running before starting the steps below.

1. Click on Start and then Search.
2. On the left-side, click All files or folders.
3. In the All or part of the file name: box, type *.NK2.
4. In the Look In field confirm that the local hard disk has been selected.
5. Click the More advanced options.
6. Make sure that the Search hidden files and folders check box has been selected (checked).
7. Click the Search button.
8. Locate the .NK2 file with the name of the profile that you want to reset and then right-click on it.
9. Then click Rename and rename the file to profilename.bak and press ENTER.
10. Quit Windows Explorer and then restart Outlook.

What will happen is that Outlook will generate a new nickname cache. This process will clean up any corruptions which may have occurred.

You can use a similar process for Windows 2000, Windows Millennium Edition (Me), Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Microsoft Windows 98 in order to reset the Outlook nickname cache.

As previously mentioned, Outlooks has a feature similar to the Auto complete which is called the Check Names feature which can be invoked manually to run interactively or also to run as a background process which is the default setting.

In interactive mode, your end user is able to type part of the name or email address and then press the Check Names button located on the Toolbar. The keyboard shortcut for the interactive mode is the CTRL+K key sequence as previously mentioned. The Check Names will allow Outlook to search the end users’ address book. Once resolved, the email address will be displayed in the appropriate send field. If there are multiple addresses then a dialog box will be presented and the end user prompted to select which addresses to use.

In background mode, your end user is able to type part of the name or email address and then gain focus in the content or body of the message. Then, while typing the email message contents, the Check Names function will run in the background searching for appropriate email addresses to display in the respective To:, Cc: and Bcc: fields. Single addresses are automatically displayed while multiple addresses are chosen from the dialog box presenting the email address choices.

An administrator can enable the background feature of Check Names mechanism by following the steps below:

1. Go to the Tools menu
2. Select Options
3. Next select Email Options
4. Then select Advanced Email Options
5. Finally, disable the option for Automatic Name Checking.