Outlook suddenly started attaching win-dat attachments - help!

[evamermaid 10]

Suddenly and without warning after years of using Outlook 2003 the dreaded Win Dat attachment has started appearing on my outgoing emails (I know because I've sent them to myself and checked them on my Yahoo online email client - and hey presto, there's the Win Dat attachment. Strangely, it doesn't happen with my MSN email client...

 

I need to send html emails because I'm a business - plain text (which doesn't show the win dat attachment) is no good. If I format in rich text, emails have win dat attachments too, so at the moment I'm having to put up with plain text because I can't risk clients opening up in Yahoo and wondering what I'm sending them (i.e. a virus???)

 

Why's it suddenly started doing it and how can I stop it??!!

[HarryBustard 10]

Why's it suddenly started doing it...

 

Either you've changed a setting or a Windows Update has caused it to do so. It may even have been caused by a newly-installed application such as malware protection - though I doubt that.

Edited September 16, 2009 by HarryBustard

[evamermaid 10]

Either you've changed a setting or a Windows Update has caused it to do so. It may even have been caused by a newly-installed application such as malware protection - though I doubt that.

 

A windows update, no doubt, but that doesn't solve the problem! Help!

[esme 10]

according to this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290809/en-us the only way to stop the win.dat attachment is to change the format of the message to plain text

 

which for a business is just stupid but M$ don't offer any alternative solution, good old Microsoft using non standard standards again

 

would there be any major problem with using Thunderbird instead of Outlook ?

Edited September 16, 2009 by esme

[evamermaid 10]

according to this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290809/en-us the only way to stop the win.dat attachment is to change the format of the message to plain text

 

which for a business is just stupid but M$ don't offer any alternative solution, good old Microsoft using non standard standards again

 

would there be any major problem with using Thunderbird instead of Outlook ?

 

I already use Firefox but strangely had never heard of Thunderbird until today. Can you download it and install it just like Outlook? Can you transfer all your Outlook folders and messages into it easily? Thanks!

[esme 10]

yep download and read about it from http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/products/thunderbird/

 

it will import all your emails and contact details too, I never had any problems with the import from Outlook 2003 I did have problems trying to go back to Outlook, I needed it for syncing contacts with my phone but I'd dump it in a heartbeat if I could get Thunderbird to do this

 

Thunderbird doesn't have things tasks, calendar or notes, you can get addons just like for Firefox and you may be able to find equivalents if you need them, but I don't think you'll be able to simply import these items from Outlook you'll have to do this manually

 

and I cannot stress this enough, make a backup before installing anything, just in case

Edited September 16, 2009 by esme

[esme 10]

I need to add, there are differences so make sure Thunderbird does what you want before jumping in with both feet

 

for example when importing contacts may miss any notes you made on the contact as Thunderbird uses a different number of fields, if you have mail folders with special characters in the names it may cause problems as Thunderbird uses directories with the same names as the mail folders to store emails and if the characters can't be used in a folder name Thunderbird can't make the folder and the import will fail

 

take a look through the support forums for Thunderbird if you have concerns

[the_bloke 17]

Suddenly and without warning after years of using Outlook 2003 the dreaded Win Dat attachment has started appearing on my outgoing emails (I know because I've sent them to myself and checked them on my Yahoo online email client - and hey presto, there's the Win Dat attachment. Strangely, it doesn't happen with my MSN email client...

 

I need to send html emails because I'm a business - plain text (which doesn't show the win dat attachment) is no good. If I format in rich text, emails have win dat attachments too, so at the moment I'm having to put up with plain text because I can't risk clients opening up in Yahoo and wondering what I'm sending them (i.e. a virus???)

 

Why's it suddenly started doing it and how can I stop it??!!

 

Well, if you haven't already done so, read:

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278061

 

Change your Outlook settings to use HTML format to send, not to use Rich Text. The problem doesn't occur with HTML emails, the problem occurs when whatever software being used to read the emails you are sending can't resolve the pants MS Rich Text format.

 

Then turn off the 'Use Microsoft Word to format compose messages' option and never ever use it again. Hey presto, Outlook will work fine.

 

(In case you ever wondered, a lot of major corporations convert incoming emails to plain text anyway. Just because an email is plain text, doesn't mean you can't have attachments with it.)

[esme 10]

Well, if you haven't already done so, read:

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278061

 

Change your Outlook settings to use HTML format to send, not to use Rich Text. The problem doesn't occur with HTML emails, the problem occurs when whatever software being used to read the emails you are sending can't resolve the pants MS Rich Text format.

 

Then turn off the 'Use Microsoft Word to format compose messages' option and never ever use it again. Hey presto, Outlook will work fine.

 

(In case you ever wondered, a lot of major corporations convert incoming emails to plain text anyway. Just because an email is plain text, doesn't mean you can't have attachments with it.)

 

sorry but the article you refer to says to use plain text format not HTML

 

this article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290809/en-us states that the problem is related to the use of Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF) which is Microsoft's way of wrapping all their non standard stuff in a standard package and even the use of HTML formatting can result in the use of TNEF

The Internet standards for encoding messages such as Multipart Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) and UUENCODE are used independently of TNEF. TNEF can exist in a MIME-encoded message as a MIME body part of type "application/ms-tnef," or in a UUENCODED message as an attachment named Winmail.dat.

the only way to guarantee outlook will not send a win.dat attachment is to format as plain text

 

you might manage to send HTML formatted emails without any attachment by not using certain fonts, special outlook features such as voting or meeting invitations or OLE objects

A TNEF-encoded message contains a plain text version of the message, and a binary attachment that "packages" various other parts of the original message. In most cases, the binary attachment is named Winmail.dat, and may include the following information:

 

* The formatted text version of the message (for example, font information and colors).

* OLE objects (for example, embedded pictures and embedded Microsoft Office documents).

* Special Outlook features (for example, custom forms, voting buttons, and meeting requests).

* Regular file attachments that were added to the original message.

which is extremely restrictive and requires that you are aware of exactly what things will trigger the use of TNEF so you can avoid them

 

an easier solution for the average user is to use plain text or if you really must use HTML or RTF formats for email then pick an email client that supports them properly

[the_bloke 17]

Erm.. thanks for that. What the article you quoted actually suggests is:

 

If you change your default e-mail format to plain text or Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), it helps to ensure that TNEF is not sent unless an Outlook feature needs it.

 

So if he changes his settings to use HTML and doesn't start adding MS Exchange/Outlook specific stuff, like Voting buttons and meeting invites, then he won't have a problem. No winmail.dat, no plain text.

 

I know people love to bash MS products, but the OP was asking how to stop it, not asking what to replace Outlook with. Maybe we should just be thankful he doesn't use Lotus Notes..

[esme 10]

I agree MS products are very useful, I've made a living out of them for years, I might even be considered a fanboy, I'm certainly not an MS basher but you have to admit they do have a tendency to come up with their own quirky interpretations of standards which don't quite fit with the rest of the world and they tend to fit these interpretations inside large globs of standard that says this chunk contains whatever the app that filled it says it does which basically means nothing but the app that wrote the data can read it, so the standard intended to ensure interoperability goes out of the window, no pun intended

 

and I take your point regarding using HTML for emails but even the section you quoted says it only helps to ensure TNEF isn't used providing you don't include a feature that needs it, so using HTML in the email requires the user to understand exactly which features will cause TNEF to be embedded and avoid them, this is a level of understanding most users don't really want to bother with, and more importantly for businesses, they want to send an email and they just want it to arrive at the destination looking the same as it left their computer, layout is important in business documents and outlook converting it to plain text on the fly while including a TNEF part because you may have inadvertently used a font outlook doesn't like, isn't really an acceptable solution

 

plus if you read the original post you'll notice that the OP is already sending HTML formatted emails and tried RTF format as an alternative

 

so I suggested an alternative in Thunderbird

 

another alternative I could have suggested but didn't think of at the time is to install CutePDF as a printer driver (or even use OpenOffice) and produce a PDF document and send that when layout is important, most people can handle PDF's

 

but if you want to guarantee outlook won't use TNEF then the easiest way is to use plain text formatting, alternatively you can do some research and find out exactly what you need to avoid to stop HTML formatting from embedding TNEF and then you can use that

 

or use a different mail client