I am a Microsoft Outlook XP user.  Whenever I enter a fax number into
the correct spot in contacts, it screws up the auto-fill-in when
typing an email.  Here is what happens.   (Normally, the auto-fill-in
takes over after you start typing in the email address and either
completes the address or drop-down comes up and you select the correct
person/address).  If I have typed in a fax number when created the
contact, nothing is normal!.  I start to address an email to that
person and begin to type in their name.  The name does not complete
itself but just stops when you stop typing.  A red
squigglie line under appears under it. When I click on the name or
partial name with the red squgglie line under it, it fills in the name
with "(Business Fax)" beside it (not the fax number, just the words
"Business Fax" inside parenthesis!  If I complete the typing of the
name, the red squigglie line comes under the name and when I click on
it, the address box comes up and I can see that there are two entries
for the one person I am trying to send an email to.  If I can get the
address box to come up and if I am lucky enough to click on the right
one of the two entries, the email address may complete itself.

If there is no fax number anywhere in the fax fields in contacts, this
is not a problem. . . but. . . if I ever typed in a fax number and
then deleted it, the same thing happens that I just told you about in
the previous paragraph.

I talked with Sam Silva an Outlook Technical Support Supervisor 
Sam Silva [v-1sasil@mssupport.microsoft.com] (509)742-2455
to whom my problem was referred.  Here is his emailed response to me
in acknowledging what I consider a problem and defending it as a
design!!!. . . can you believe it?  Here is a direct quote from his
email:

"Unfortunately, this definitely IS behavior by design.  I think that
Bill, explained that a new Contacts folder can be created and the
Contacts with FAX numbers could be kept there, and then you could
remove the fax numbers from the main Contacts folder.  This is a
viable "work-around".  I realize that this is not the answer that you
were hoping for but it is the only one available to us at this point.
It is a feature that I am not fond of either and this is not the first
time that I have contacted the Development Team about this particular
feature.  It would also be helpful if YOU sent an email to
http://mswish@microsoft.com  explaining how the feature is affecting
your work.  The more input that the Development Team can get, the
better they can determine what changes are needed for future Service
Packs and Versions."

He said that fax numbers need to be left out of my contacts for
Outlook XP and a new fax contact number needs to be created???????  I
am probably just too dumb to understand but. . . maybe one of you
could call or email Sam Silva and explain it to me.
1.  Is this really a design inovation and if so, could you explain to
me in language I can understand, why is it good not to be able to keep
a fax number in the field that says fax numbers without screwing up
your email address auto-fill capability?
2.  Is there any sort of a fix for this?

Just something I've noticed in Outlook 2000 which is probably part of
the same "design feature":

When entering a contact, I usually enter as much as I can (email, fax,
tol-free fax, etc.)
When I am sending a message, I click on "TO:", then change from
"gloabl address book" to "contacts" (because all of my personal
contacts are in contacts, not the server's address book.). I then have
a list of my contacts, and I can click to add them to my message. But
none of them show the actual data. What I see is like:

John Smith (e-mail)
John Smith (business fax)
Pete Johnson (e-mail)
Pete Johnson (business fax)
Pete Johnson (business fax2)

It makes it frustrating when I have several email addresses for
someone.


Here's a not-really-all-that-great sugegstion:
Do you actuall use Outlook to send faxes to your contacts? Or do you
just type their name in and send them email?

If you don't actually use Outlook to send them faxes, then you could
either a)put the fax number in the notes instead of the fax line
or b)put the fax number in another line such as "home phone"

b) would allow you to still select the fax number to be displayed when
you're looking at lists of contacts.

If this is a suitable answer for you, then post a clarification or a
comment, and I'll turn it into an answer.