Today a collegue came into the office with the problem of being unable to access a contacts list once she was composing an email. The help for this in Microsoft Outlook is actually not too helpful, but the solution is actually simple.
All you need to do in right hand click on the contact list in the navigation pane, then choose properties. From the following options click on the tab Outlook address book and then just make sure the box saying “show this folder as an outlook address book” is checked. Then click OK and you should be good to go!