Windows Mail - Contacts failed to load

When I moved the Contacts Folder from the C: Drive to the E: drive then some problem started with Windows Mail. And when I try to move it back then it gives me a message that there is already an existing folder with the same name and if I want to merge them and when I do then the folder doesnt appear although all hidden folders appear. And when Windows Mail is started then I get an error message which says "Contacts failed to load" which is followed by "Windows Mail could not be started. The application was unable to initialize the Windows Contacts. Yourcomputer may be out of memory or your disk is full. (0x8000FFFF)", and then "Windows Mail could not be started because MSDE.dll could not be initialized". Can anyone help me out with this problem.

Can you try to first click on start and then in the Search Bar type shell:contacts, what happens then. When you do the same then the Contacts Folder should start and show you where it is stored in Windows. After that you can simply right click on that folder and then choose Properties and location and then move it anywhere in the pc you want to.

If you are getting the "contacts failed to load" error that so many people are facing then simply try to right click on the Windows Mail from the start menu and then click "Run as administrator". In my case it was opening, so if you are lucky then it will open for you as well. But the other problem that I was having was the address book was lost by me and it happened because of something that I did while putting contacts into another mail account. But after when I ran it as administrator, I closed it and then clicked it again to launch and it was opening properly. So, hope that it does to everyone else.

Even I had the same issue on my computer. But after modifying the below registry key the problem seems to be resolved: HKCU\software\microsoft\windows\current version\explorer\user shell folders\{56784854-C6CB-462B-8169-88E350ACB882 modified it by setting the actual contacts folders and then problem seems to be gone.