Vista Email contact list to XP address book style

[#1]

Please can anyone tell me if it is possible to create an XP style Address book in Vista`s "windows mail"....
I used to be able to double click on a name in the address book/contact panel on the left side of Outlook Express and the address would appear in a message ready box.......
Windows Mail has a longwinded way of doing it which I would like to change if possible to my old style ....
I have tried to "copy and paste" "contacts list" to extract the email addresses, but it will not paste into a document, nor will they appear in a "new folder" marked Contacts....

[#2]

I think that I have read this question before in other forums and seem to remember that it was one of those features which hadn't, and couldn't be added to WM.
I've seen a lot of references to Windows Live Mail and many folk seem to think that it is better than WM but don't know if this particular feature is part of it.  Wonder if Thunderbird has it?

[#3]

Thanks for the reply, poppy, Thunderbird has an address book facility, but I have had to type in all the addresses onto new "cards" for the contact list..... also you have to "select" the name and then click on "write" in the top toolbar, to bring up the message form box.... a slight improvement on windows mail, but neither as useful as the old system ! !

[#4]

Quote from: poppy

Windows Live Mail and many folk seem to think that it is better than WM

I use Live Mail (desktop not web) alongside Outlook 2003 and though it's a bit different it's quite similar, can't recall about that exact feature though but if it was annoyingly different I would have noticed.
I think Windows Mail is a dead end now, there's no equivalent in Windows 7 so Microsoft are pushing you down the "Live" route.
I've also got the Windows Live Outlook Connector installed so that I can access hotmail etc. accounts there too, though I don't generally.