While in Outlook Express I went to Tools / options/ and selected
"Share contact infomation among Microsoft Outlook and other
applications.  Address book data will be stored in the MS Outlook
Contact Store.  I actually did not know what I was doing.  I do have
MS Office Professional.  But I had not installed Outlook.  So, after
making the above selection my email sending and receiving was
inaccessable.  I have over 700 email addresses in Outlook Express. 
I've now installed Outlook.  But I still can't find my missing Outlook
Express wab file with all my addresses in them.  How can I get my
Outlook Express address book back to access and use it?

It looks like Windows changed the path of your wab file.  You will
first need to find the file:

Click Start, and then click Search. 
Click All files and folders. 
In the What do you want to search for box, click All files and folders. 
In the All or part of the file name type, *.wab, and then click Search. 
When the search is finished, double-click each file to open it. When
you have found the correct one (it will contain your Contact
information), note the exact location and name of the file.

Then you cna import the file:

In Outlook Express, click the File menu. 
Click Import, and then click Address Book. 
Point the Look In field to the location that you noted above.
Click the .wab file, and then click Open. 
Click OK to import the Address Book. 

This should work.  Hopefully the wab file did not become corrupt.  If
this does not work, please update the question.

Versions help, particularly when discussing Outlook. For instance, I
don't think Outlook Express has used WAB files for quite a few
years...

Outlook files are *.PST files. The following is a link to Microsoft
technet searching for "data stores" in Outlook Express:
http://search.support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?query=data+stores&catalog=LCID%3D1033&pwt=false&title=false&kt=ALL&mdt=0&comm=1&ast=1&ast=2&ast=3&mode=a

And then there's the OE site by MS MVP, Tom Koch:
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/

Either of those should help for better understanding data storage in OE.

Good luck!

Dear Dreamboat-ga:
I am using the most recent IE 6 which contains Outlook Express.  And
yes, Outlook Express is still using WAB files for the address book.

But thanks for the pointers.  I will for sure check them out.
Thanks,
skypastr