A few questions on HTML emails with Outlook 2003 and Win XP

[Guest]

I am trying to create a HTML email to send to our staff and have a few
questions that I hope you can answer.

1. Around 50% of our office pc's are using Win XP sp2 which when html emails
with images stored on server not embeded are recivieved require you to click
on each picture to download. I know this can be switched on and off manually
through tools, and you can even set it to display images from certain Domains
(This would be the method we would use hosting images on our Intranet &
Internet sites). Is there a way of sending a "patch" to each system to change
these details without manual input, running a script or such?

2. A number of our staff have blackberrys, we need to make sure that when
the email is recieved they do not get a unreadble email, I understand we can
send a text version with the email? where can I get information on this?

Thanks in advance

Mark

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

I am trying to create a HTML email to send to our staff and have a few
questions that I hope you can answer.

1. Around 50% of our office pc's are using Win XP sp2 which when html
emails with images stored on server not embeded are recivieved
require you to click on each picture to download. I know this can be
switched on and off manually through tools, and you can even set it
to display images from certain Domains (This would be the method we
would use hosting images on our Intranet & Internet sites). Is there
a way of sending a "patch" to each system to change these details
without manual input, running a script or such?

Not that I know of unless you can do something with the Office resource kit
admin stuff to do a custom install of Office this way - or force plain text
for all mail at the mail server itself. Note that the OS has nothing at all
to do with this - it's an OL2003 thing.

However, I strongly advise you to leave well enough alone - most HTML spam
contains "phone home" beacons in it. If you enable the option to download
images automatically you will probably increase the odds of your getting
more and more spam as the sender will know he or she got a live one. ;-)

2. A number of our staff have blackberrys, we need to make sure that
when the email is recieved they do not get a unreadble email, I
understand we can send a text version with the email? where can I get
information on this?

What are you using - Blackberry Enterprise Server? That's the best way to
go, honestly. However, you can't guarantee that all messages will come
through 100% perfectly - ever.