Fix: New Contact Group Button Missing in Vista

Resolving the Missing "New Contact Group" Button in Vista Contacts

A reader, Jeffrey, reported an issue where the New Contact Group button was absent from his Vista Contacts folder. Investigation revealed that this was occurring on my system as well.

The root cause of the problem was Vista incorrectly identifying the Contacts folder as a picture folder.

Observe that the button is entirely absent from the toolbar when this misidentification occurs.

Correcting the Folder Type

To rectify this, right-click within the Contacts folder and select Customize This Folder from the context menu.

This action opens the folder customization settings.

Within the Customize tab, modify the "Use this folder type as a template" setting.

Change this setting from "Pictures" (or whatever the current incorrect setting is) to "Contacts".

Restoring Button Functionality

Upon applying this change, revisiting the Contacts folder will display the New Contact Group button.

All other relevant buttons should also be visible and functional.

It is worth noting that improved logic for automatically determining folder types would prevent this issue.