Question about Outlook Express

Hi. I have about 500 contacts in my windows contacts folder under c:/users/helen/contacts or something like that (!) but I have over 1000 in the contacts section of my Windows Live Mail program. I thought they were supposed to sync with each other or one feed from the other so that they are the same and so when you delete or add to one you delete or add to the other automatically? I thought that the windows contacts folder on my C drive fed the contacts folder in my WLM. Can anyone tell me why the two contacts databases for want of a better word aren't the same as each other/one and the same? And how I can get them to match other than manually adding or deleting contacts which would only be a short term solution.