How to make Your Windows 2000/2003 Active Directory,
a Central Address Book in Outlook 2002 (XP) 2003

Prepared by Ian Matthews Sept 22, 2003

When Microsoft introduced Windows 2000 Server and Active Directory, they wanted it to be extensible to other MS products.  In particular they wanted Exchange 2000 to tie directly into it.  As a result, Exchange 2000 largely dumped the user management interface that it had developed in version 5 because it already existed in Windows Active Directory.  If you have ever installed Exchange 2000 (or newer) you will see the vast number of new tabs it adds to your Active Directory Users and Computers.

I attended an Exchange 2000 release event and recall being told that this was the first product in Microsoft history to be smaller than its predecessor. 

Exchange queries Windows Active Directory (AD) using Light Weight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and you can too!  Many programs can query Windows AD but one of the most overlooked and easiest to set up is Outlook 2002.  You can quickly get your non-Exchange environment users to see a global address book that even includes groups. 

Because it would cut into Exchange sales, Microsoft does not want people knowing how to do this but I have successfully developed the following step by step process and run it without error for more than three years now... it works (even with Windows 2003 Server).

NOTE: This process below is offered with no guarantees and we accept no liability. 
To keep an otherwise complex process simple, it is provided in a terse point form.

1. Go into your Windows 2000/2003 Active Directory and create a new user that has no special permissions and belongs only to the DOMAIN USERS group

   • be sure to set an easy to remember password

   • be sure to set the password to NEVER EXPIRE
      

2. Make sure that your existing users have an email address listed in Active Directory
   
   
    

3. Add any "contacts" that you want to have listed in your global address book (i.e. people that are not on your domain like SUN users, or clients, or board of directors or...)
   
   
    

4. Go to your Outlook and click TOOLS, EMAIL ACCOUNTS, ADD A NEW DIRECTORY
   
   
    

5. Select INTERNET DIRECTORY SERVICE (LDAP)
    

6. Complete the form with your information.  Note:

   • you can only enter the name of a server in the SERVER NAME field and that that server must be a Domain Controller (i.e  with Active Directory)

   • you MUST enter your domain name plus a slash plus the name of the user you created in step one in the USER NAME field

     • If your Windows Domain passwords do not change you could enter your users information in these fields.  The dummy user account is required only because it's password does not change.
       
       
        

7. Click the MORE SETTINGS BUTTON and name your Global Address Book whatever you want.
   
   
    

8. Click OK enough times to make your way back to the base Outlook window, then close and restart Outlook to have the changes take effect. 
    

9. Verify that is it working.  You can do this in several ways:

   • by bringing up the address book;

   • starting a new email message and clicking the TO button, or'

   • just type in part of someone's name in the TO field of a new message.

   
   
   Note that if you the double click on a name you found in the global/central address book that you will see the information you entered about them in Active Directory.

Personally, I like to go into the users address book settings (TOOLS, ADDRESS BOOK, TOOLS, SETTINGS) and set their personal contacts to be searched and shown first, but there is no need to do this.

To make this MS Exchange free system really swing you should read (and setup) Outlooks shared calendaring features as explained HERE.