How the OCS Address Book Works

The OCS 2007 Address Book service’s primary purpose is to provide updated GAL information to the OC 2007 client. It will also provide phone number normalization service for OC 2007 clients. The ABServer.exe is scheduled to query AD periodically for updates to user / group /information and provide this delta of updated information to the AddressBook share as .dabs files. After the initial installation and at 1:30 AM every day after that ABServer.exe will provide a full update to the AddressBook share with a lsabs file.

The OC 2007 client will use in band provisioning to access the URL https://externalpoolname/Abs/Ext/f-0901e.lsabs from the AbsExt virtual folder during its user sign-in process the contents of this file will provide the OC client with the information that will be imported into a galcontacts.db file.

The OC client will inherit the proxy server configuration that is used by IE and cache the Abs/Ext/f-0901e.lsabs at the proxy and locally on the Windows client. Also, The OC client configuration for automatic DNS lookup and manual TLS configuration can render different results in the HTTP URL that is used for accessing the ABS virtual folders. So there can be several different items that come into play that may cause issue with the creation or update of the galcontact.db file on the OC client.

The galcontacts.db file is located at:Windows XP: %userprofile%Local SettingsApplication dataMicrosoftCommunicatorWindows Vista: %userprofile%AppDataLocalMicrosoftCommunicator

Signing out of OC 2007 and moving this file then signing back into OC 2007 should import a new lsdabs file and a new galcontact.db should be created. If that is taken care of then we know that issue that you are having is not a permission issue with the AddressBook share or a network connectivity issue. If you cannot download the galcontact.db file:

1. Make sure this symptom is the same on all of your Vista clients. Then take a network capture on the Vista client while signing into OC 2007. This will take a Vista compatible Network Sniffer like Netmon 3.0. Prior to taking the capture sign out of OC 2007, make sure that the Web Proxy client is disabled, Delete IE cache on the client, use c:>ipconfig /flushdns on the client. Start the network sniff and Open / Sign into OC 2007. Stop the network capture.

2. On the Vista client try turning off User Access Control and then use the steps above to import the galcontact.db

3. If you can create a new galcontact.db without any issues using the steps above then our problem may lie elsewhere. If this is the case I would like to send youa link to our MSDT utuility that will gather logging from your Vista client and mail it back to me.

Please include an email address that I can use to send the MSDT information to you.

Written by Mike Adkins (Microsoft)