| A friend of mine wrote me with a problem he was having. It
seemed that even though his email showed he had attachments, he couldn't
open them. Instead, when he clicked on the attachment "paper
clip" the attachments were grayed out and inaccessible. He forwarded
one of them to me and I was able to open the attachment.
Well, to make a long story short, this problem prompted me to install
Internet Explorer 6, and it's Outlook Express 6 companion (that's what he
was using, I was still using version 5.5. I'm a little slow to change
sometimes).
I had him send me an email with an attached picture and lo and behold,
I couldn't open the attachments now. So I went off digging for an answer.
I found this in the Outlook Express readme text (I haven't found it yet in
the help file):
Virus protection feature
-------------------------
Virus protection is the answer to renewed interest in the threat of
e-mail viruses. It blocks programmatic sends and lets users specify
if they want to open or save attachments. This option to block the
preset list of file types may be accessed via the checkbox under
Tools | Options | Security | "Do not allow attachments to be opened
or
saved that could potentially be a virus." This option is enabled by
default for new installations and upgrades.
Nice feature, but unfortunately Outlook Express applies it
a little heavy-handedly! The program block ALL attachments by default,
even picture files. Outlook 2002 has a similar feature, but you can
manually remove file types from the list. In Outlook Express 6, however,
the only thing you can do is turn off the feature if you want to enable
your attachments. I decided to run some tests. I sent myself a little
picture image that I created. Here what I got. The first image comes from
the preview pain, I mean PANE (see how the attachment is grayed out) and
the second one when I opened the email by double clicking on it. |
| Here is how to turn off this security option. Understand
that I am NOT telling you that you should do this. This will allow all
attachments to be opened, so if you do this make sure your Anti-virus
software is up to date! (You do have Anti-virus software running, don't
you?)
To turn off this option, go to the menu bar and select
"Tools" > "Options" an click it. You will be given
the Options dialog box. |
