Attachments,O.Ex.

[wombil]

Hello All,My sister has a laptop with wireless connection running Vista with email problems.Email can be sent and received but it runs verry slow and attachments cannot be opened.They appear in the email but she cannot open them.The current ones are .doc files/attachments which should be no trouble on any pc.[I think].One exercise I did was get her to forward the emails to me.I received them ok and opened the attachments ok here on my machine running ubuntu.I saved the attachments and sent them back and she received them ok but still cannot open the attachments.Have got her to download MS word viewer but still no joy.There is plenty of room on the hdd.
I realise I am a bit short on detail but all this was done over the phone but she is coming down here in a few days with the machine.
Question is,apart fron system restore points,etc. where should I look for a solution?
Thanks for any help.
Ap

[Sylvander]

1. "it runs verry slow"
Infected?

2. "attachments cannot be opened"
(a) Infected?

(b) She should save the attachments to a handy folder somewhere [on a USB HDD or Flash Drive?] and try to open them in this PC or that [having scanned them for infection 1st].

(c) Does her own PC have programs installed on it that are capable of opening the files?
e.g. MS Word for opening .doc files?

(d) And are those programs properly registered [settings in the Windows registry] to open these files?

(e) Are the 3-letter extensions on the files correct when considering the content?
e.g. A file with a .doc extension might not have been produced by MS Word!
Sometimes the extension is not appropriate, and yet one particular PC can open them because the particular program registered [on this PC] to open files with this extension is still capable of handling the contents.

[Paul Komski]

Which eMail client?

Which antivirus and firewall?

[wombil]

Thanks Sylvander and Paul.I assume the email client is outlook express or outlook but won't really know for a couple of days.
A computer shop where she lives tried to sell her MS Office for over $300.I don't think that would have done any good as I can open the same messages here using Open Office in ubuntu.Thats why she is coming here.[I'm the favourite brother too].
Thanks again Guys.

[Paul Komski]

There's no OE in Vista but the replacement Windows Mail (http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-us/help/fdc1ee72-f1d9-4ba6-927e-4d87aa82f7701033.mspx) blocks a variety of attachments (possibly including doc files because they can contain macros). You could also try attaching a renamed .doc file as .txt and see if it got blocked.

PS a possible fix: http://email.about.com/cs/oetipstricks/qt/et030803.htm

[wombil]

She has also mentioned rps word in relation to the email.could this have something to do with it

[Paul Komski]

What's "rps word" ?

[wombil]

I don't know either but I got this off google

Reference Point Software Templates for APA & MLA styles
Use your existing word processor and document software - nothing new to learn. Create title pages, abstract pages, margins, page numbers, references, ...
www.charm.net/~rps/ - Cached - Similar

[wombil]

Hey guys,
well the email client is bigpond web mail and the anti virus and firewall is paid kaspersky.
The isp is bigpond.Have configured windows mail and installed microsoft office.Performed the link provided by Paul on windows mail.
Windows mail receives mail and .doc files can be opened ok BUT now windows mail will not send mail out .Error says no application available or installed to do this.Only got a quick look today but it's sending me nuts.Perhaps kaspersky firewall is blocking things.
I realise this could be a bit vague but willing to try anything.Could not get phone help from bigpond today either.
The thing does work by receiving mail in bigpond,sending it toourself and opening the mail in windows mail,where the attachments can be opened.Bit of a pita tho. No trouble with pictures tho.
Thanks for looking and hope you are all having a good time

[Paul Komski]

Since it's presumably a webmail account (with a custom POP3 mail setting) which browser has been used (if any) to grab mails directly from the server without using windows mail.

Some email services (eg gmail) and ISPs block all sorts of content that might possibly be executable. Changing the attachment's file extension to a non-executable one is a way, as already indicated, to test this side of things out. Zipping up executables doesn't by-pass gmail's filters but changing the extension does.

[wombil]

pretty sure the browser is internet explorer.I changed a suffix from.doc to.txt
and it was received as .udt or similar and would not open.I know this is getting a bit confusing so may be better left until I get a good look at the machine.
I was hoping that there might have a simple fix for this but it doesn't appear so.
Might put ubuntu on a partition,don't have any trouble with that.
Thanks for your attention,
wombil

[wombil]

Hellooo,back again.All is working ok now.I changed over and configured windows mail,disabled bigpond mail and when she took it home all is working.I woke up at 4 AM this morning and realised that I was trying to send email from her machine through my phone line which of course has different codes.Her machine is wi-fi [I think thats the term] and since I do not have that here I just ran it from my ethernet connection.If you think I am as dumb as dog s*** then I understand as that is my own thinking.
Anyway all is well now and I apologise for the misleading information.
I really like this site and do 90% of my browsing here and learn quite a lot from all catergories,not only my own queries.
Thanks for all the assistance,
wombil