Can anyone help with a simple way to restore a deleted OE Address Book?

This is not the first time I've accidentally done this and it takes ages to set it up again. Why don't they just have an Undo button!

Hmmm...no suggestions?

Well I fixed it ...took a sledge hammer to the computer to teach it a lesson ...it won't do that again in a hurry!

Don't you back that stuff up at all Tassie? I thought OE had a backup feature that you can restore it with? I don't use it, I use Wikmail, so I'm not sure what it has anymore.

That has always worked for me! (EDIT: I mean the sledge hammer method)

(As for restoring the deleted Address Book, if you don't have a backup, I wouldn't have a clue...)

No backup feature that I could find. They don't even provide you with the restore button unless you have Exchange Server which I don't.

I ended up redoing it from scratch but have a copy of it in Word for next time so I don't have to find all the individual details again.

I believe that you have to "Export" and "Import" with both Outlook and OE in order to 'backup' your contact list.

But I too like the "Sledgehammer" as the tool to reach for when computer gives you fits.

Try Wikmail http://wikmail.com it has a free version, does most of the things that OE does, and is fully contained within it's directory, nothing even writes to the registry. Has a full featured backup system, and you can just copy the entire directory to a safe location for backups too if you don't want to do an actual "backup". I've been using it for a while, changed over from Incredimail to this one. This gives you the way to backup your contact list so you don't have to retype it

The OE Address Book (at least in XP) is in a file named [username].wab
I have moved that file, as well as the directory containing all the mail messages, to a folder that I named 'OE' in 'My Documents'. That way I can easily find them and copy them (i.e. back them up) to any other location.
I can't remember exactly how I did the move (the new location must be recognized by OE!), but I seem to remember that it was one of those little nifty tricks published somewhere on the web.
The original locations for all the OE files are a bit strange, embedded deeply in an illogical location somewhere, but you can of course always find the Address Book by doing a system search for *.wab.

Same with Outlook itself - it has got a backup function but I had to download a file to get it to work.
When my computer crashed (and burned) a few weeks back I managed to restore my contacts and messages but didn't realise I'd been successful as the contacts etc didn't appear in their normal place.
Then one day I noticed an extra "personal folders" file I hadn't noticed before, I clicked on it and voila!
By that time I'd cussed so much that I'm sure there would have been red ears in Richmond way on the other side of the globe.

I would have thought after paying so much for Office '07, that backing up and restoring what is one of the most important apps on my computer (for me anyway) would have been simpler and much more intuitive - or perhaps I'm just dumb.

Let this be a lesson to all you Microsoft haters out there. When you hate on MS, it will hate on you back!

Seriously, though. I use Outlook 2007 and it has a plugin you download to backup your PST file anywhere you want to.