Windows Vista Security: Praxisorientierte Sicherheit für Profis

Using Windows Contacts

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Secure Mail is the last set of security options on the Security tab. To

use Secure Mail as it is offered here, you will have to acquire a digital

certificate that you will need to import and configure. The digital cer-

tificate has settings that determine how you can use it. Some certifi-

cates are used just for SSL encryption, others for IPSec or network

encryption, and some can be used for both of these purposes, and

more. If you already have a digital certificate that is enabled for email

encryption and/or digital signing, you can choose whether you want

all emails to be encrypted and/or digitally signed automatically using

the “Encrypt” and “Digitally sign” checkboxes. If you don’t already

have a digital certificate, Windows Mail gives you a few places you can

enroll for one. Just click the Get Digital ID button and follow the

prompts.

Using Windows Contacts

One of the early promises Microsoft made about Windows Vista was that it would

include a deeply integrated contacts store that would replace the old Windows

Address Book (WAB), which has been around for years. Microsoft delivered on this

promise by including Windows Contacts with Windows Vista. You can use Win-

dows Contacts to create a virtual address book of individual contacts and groups of

contacts.

Any contact you create can have a picture, name, and email address associated with

it as well as full details on home and work contact information. You can also add

personal and family information, such as birthdays, anniversaries, and the names of a

contact’s children. When you use Windows Contacts to create groups of contacts,

you can send email to everyone in the contact group simply by specifying the name

of the contact group in your email message.

Getting to Know Windows Contacts

To start Windows Contacts, click Start, click All Programs, and then click Windows

Contacts. Alternatively, you can start Windows Contacts from within Windows Mail

by clicking the Contacts button on the toolbar. As Figure 16-10 shows, Windows

Contacts is integrated into Windows Explorer. Similar to Windows Mail, Windows

Contacts stores each contact and group you create as a separate file. Contact files for

individuals are saved as .contact files. Contact files for groups are saved as .group

files. In your profile, you’ll find these files in the Contacts folder. As with Windows

Mail, this allows you to easily access, modify, and back up contacts in ways that

weren’t possible previously. This new approach simplifies the way you work with

and manage contacts.

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Chapter 16: Using Windows Mail, Calendars, and Contacts

From within Windows Contacts, you can use the new Windows Explorer view styles

to organize your contacts, add new contacts and contact groups, import contacts

(from CSV, LDIF, vCard, and WAB), and export contacts (to CSV and vCard). You

display and configure individual contacts using a dialog box that is actually quite

similar to the old WAB Contacts Properties dialog box. The only big change is that

you can now add a picture to represent each contact. When you add a picture to a

contact, Windows Vista optimizes the picture for the small size Windows Contact

uses, and then changes the contact’s icon to match the picture. As discussed previ-

ously, several other features in Windows Vista use the picture associated with con-

tacts, including People Near Me and the Start Menu for contacts that have user

accounts on your computer.

Windows Contacts is designed to replace other storage mechanisms for personal

contacts. You can use Windows to keep track of people and organizations by creat-

ing contacts for them in Windows Contacts. Each contact contains the information

for one person or organization. When you need to look up a friend’s email address or

phone number, you can open your Contacts folder and find it there. When you want

to take notes about a business contact, you can store the notes along with the con-

tact in the Contacts folder. No matter what type of contact information you want to

remember about someone, you can put it in the Contacts folder.

Figure 16-10. Creating and managing your contacts