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Attachments with Outlook Express

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by shanghai sam

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When I attach a file to an outgoing email with outlook express, specifically word or excel documents, for example "filename.doc" the attachement is received by the recipiemt in the format "filename.xxxxxDEFANGED-doc" (where xxxxx is a 5 digit number). This means that the recipiemt cannot open the document without first saving it to the hard drive and renaming in back to "filename.doc". What is causing this name change and how can I fix it?

3 replies

by syscokid

Is this one specific recipient, or multiple recipients within the same organization? Many antivirus products will strip attachments with the .doc extension because of their ability to launch viruses. The addition of the word DEFANGED sounds like that's whats happening (though I'm not sure what specific antivirus product works that way).

If that's the case, your best bet is to send it as a zip file, which they can then open and unzip, or change the extension before attaching it; they'll then have to save it and rename it to .doc to read it.

by syscokid

PS. If you are emailing at work, your company's mail server may be the one that's stripping the attachment. Check with your admin.

by maxwell edison

The attachment is uu encoded. That is not really MIME standard, but some mailers still use it. This is a security action to minimise the chances of people receiving worms and viruses.

If you need to send a word document, it is a better idea to use the rtf format, which will not carry any macros. (However, due to a bug in many versions of MSWord, rtf files can be tricked to run macros without warning, see advisory from Mircrosoft:

www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS01-028.asp
to update your MSWord program with the proper patch.)

I would check with both your ISP and the recipient’s ISP (if possible) to determine the best resolution.

(REMOVE SPACES from the pasted URL.)

Maxwell

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