Outlook Problem

[gav]

Hi Everyone

I seem to have developed a problem when sending emails....so I am told !

Apparently when I send emails with attachments the recipients either do not get the attachment or they get an icon with a win.dat file ext.

This ssems to be a fairly recent thing. I have tried sending an email to myself and also to another account on my machine and they all work fine, but other people, who I email regularly and normally without any problem, are saying they are not receiving them or they are in a strange format ??
When I look in the sent items folder I can see the attachment attached to the email and can open it from there also.

I thought for a minute I might have a problem with a virus, however I have scanned with NAV and come up clean. I also use Adaware and Spybot regularly.


Does anyone have any thoughts on this ?

Gav

[Budfred]

If you recently upgraded IE to the latest version, that may account for the problem. I don't use IE, but I have seen reference here several times to the default security settings in the new version causing problems like this....

[gav]

Hi Budfred,

I have not upgraded IE to my knowledge, but after checking I have found that I have the box checked for "check for updates".

Does this update automatically ?

From my help about button it shows I am on the following update versions

Q324929
Q818529
Q330994
Q828750
Q824145

Why does IE have anything to do with Outlook ?
Can I get my attachments working again ?


Gav

[Budfred]

I am not real up there on this stuff since I stay away from using IE and Outlook except at work where I don't have a choice. I know that there is some connection between the 2 programs, but I am not sure what... That said, you could check your security settings in your Outlook to see if you have them set so that these attachments can't go out. Another possibility is that your ISP is filtering them out, I have seen threads with that situation recently too....

I am beyond my level of expertise here, so hang on and some who are more familiar with the programs will be along....

[papertech]

Found this link by a google search which offers a probable explanation and fix: (has a pop-up, but is worth it.)

http://itjobcoach.ca/useful_tools/winmaildat/index.shtml

[Paul Komski]

papertech's link outlines the problem (which is an old one) of "incompatiblilities" between the sending and receiving eMail client. Most commonly seen sending html from outlook or ms-exchange (which outlook was originally based on). Try sending as plain text and see if they are received OK.

And to clear up another confusion created at the start of this thread. Outlook Express and Internet Explorer are "linked" and likely to be upgraded in parallel - though you can decide to upgrade IE and keep an earlier version of OE (or even to not install OE at all).

Outlook is even further distanced from IE and is part of MS-Office.

{Info for anyone that's interested - There is a direct linkage between the .eml files created by OE and the .mht web archive files created by IE. Both of these use the same MIME encoding and embed "stuff" into the body of the ASCI text. Viewed with a text editor they are identical and often interchangeable by just changing the file extensions - depends a bit on exactly what has been embedded}. ;)

[gav]

A big thanks to Budfred, Papertech and Paul

Regards

Gav

[Budfred]

Does that mean that it is working??? What did you do that got it working again??

[gav]

Hi Budfred,

I have not actually had a reply from anyone yet that I have sent the test to, however read the useful link from Papertech. This explains all, but in brief I had my mail formatting set to HTML. If you set it to Plain Text then all other email programs seem to be able to receive the attachments fine. I tend to forget that there is life other than Microsoft! and that comes in different forms ;-)

Whilst I don't know for certain this has worked I am pretty sure after reading the link that it will work, especially seems I was set to HTML.

Thanks again for your replies

Gav

[papertech]

I was surprised at first that I had never heard of the problem, especially after Paul stated it was an old issue. I've used Outlook, OE and IE religiously for many years. BUT.......I have always sent plain text.

Thank you Paul for your insights on the subject. As a tech, I'm supposed to already know these things! I do learn something everytime I visit this forum.

[gav]

Just to let everyone know. I have had it confirmed that people are getting my attachments when sent using plain text.

Thanks to everyone for their help

Gav