Can't open any attachment

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ron Haddock
  • Start date Start date
R

Ron Haddock

I have never been able - I've had this P C for about 6
months - to open any attachment to any of the E-mails I
have recieved. Some of them may be suspect, but a few
have been from relatives and I've checked what was in
them and simple things like an announcement of an
upcoming trip were judged to be a security risk, or
whatever kind of risk the system elects to assign and
refuse the opening of the attachment. I just this
evening had an E-mail from a friend whose daughter is
going to pass away within a few days or hours - I was not
allowed to open the attachment!

How do I adjust this intolerable condition?
 
1. Start Outlook Express.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options.
3. Click the Security tab, click to clear the "Do not allow
attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially
be a virus" check box under Virus Protection, and then click OK.

Applicable Microsoft Knowledge Base Article:

Cannot Open E-Mail Attachments in Outlook Express
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q329570

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

----------------------------------------------------------------------


|I have never been able - I've had this P C for about 6
| months - to open any attachment to any of the E-mails I
| have recieved. Some of them may be suspect, but a few
| have been from relatives and I've checked what was in
| them and simple things like an announcement of an
| upcoming trip were judged to be a security risk, or
| whatever kind of risk the system elects to assign and
| refuse the opening of the attachment. I just this
| evening had an E-mail from a friend whose daughter is
| going to pass away within a few days or hours - I was not
| allowed to open the attachment!
|
| How do I adjust this intolerable condition?
 
So in 6 months you have never gone into Tools/Options/Security and checked
the settings?
Now that is intolerable.

Testy
 
Greetings --

First and foremost, do you have installed applications that are
capable of opening/reading the specific attachments that you're
receiving? WinXP cannot magically open every known file format in the
world; you have to have the proper software installed to deal with the
types of attachments that you receive.

Secondly, does the Help and Support shortcut on your Start Menu
not work? Does the Help Menu of whatever email client you're using
also not work? You very probably could have learned to adjust this
"intolerable condition" yourself, with just a few seconds of thought
and effort, had you the initiative of a petunia.

As you've neglected to provide the name of whatever product you
use to send/receive/read email, I can only provide you the answer that
applies to WinXP's built-in email application:

Outlook Express' default security settings are simply trying to
protect you. OE has no way of telling whether an attachment actually
contains a virus or not, so it temporarily blocks any of those file
types that could potentially contain a virus. In Outlook Express,
Tools > Options > Security, uncheck the "Do not allow attachments to
be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus" option, assuming
you trust the source, of course. The wiser course of action, however,
would be to modify your list of unsafe files, as outlined in the KB
articles below:

Cannot Open E-Mail Attachments in OE After You Install SP1
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q329570

Information About the Unsafe File List in Internet Explorer 6
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;291369

OLEXP Using Virus Protection Features in Outlook Express 6
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;291387



Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:




You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH
 
Ron said:
I have never been able - I've had this P C for about 6
months - to open any attachment to any of the E-mails I
have received. Some of them may be suspect, but a few
have been from relatives and I've checked what was in
them and simple things like an announcement of an
upcoming trip were judged to be a security risk, or
whatever kind of risk the system elects to assign and
refuse the opening of the attachment. I just this
evening had an E-mail from a friend whose daughter is
going to pass away within a few days or hours - I was not
allowed to open the attachment!

How do I adjust this intolerable condition?
Click to expand...

Read more about this (and how long it has been around) here:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329570

It also explains ways to turn off the security feature.

You can either turn off this protection
(not recommended without OTHER protection.):

In Outlook Express, under Tools->Options go to the Security tab and take the
checkmark out of the "do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that
could potentially be a virus" box.


Or work around it
(more difficult, but safer, allows you to be more careful about what you
open.):

Open an email containing the attachments that Outlook Express is blocking
access to. The 'OE removed access...' message will be shown as before.
Click the 'Forward' button (as if you are going to forward the email to
another person)

A new message window should open, with the message ready for forwarding.
This is where you would normally enter some new email addresses to which you
would wish to forward the message. (We are not actually going to forward it)

What it also does, at least in cases I have seen, is to show the
attachments, between the 'Subject' line and the 'Message area'.
You should be able to double-click on an attachment and it will give you
the option of opening it, or saving it.

There should also be a check box which says something like: 'Always ask
before opening this type of file'. The checkbox will be ticked.

Do the following: Select 'Open it' and also
(THIS BIT IS THE IMPORTANT STEP!) Un-tick the 'Always ask...' checkbox.
The attached document should now open.

And finally, if the above all worked, and you performed the steps for
opening the attachment, you should now find that if you close and
re-open the email that was causing problems before, you should now be
able to see the attachments!

(I believe that it is the "Always ask" setting that OE uses to determine
whether a particular attachment type should be treated as 'harmful')

It is NOT recommended to use the above steps for accessing executable
attachments, and ALWAYS make sure you have an up-to-date virus checker!

Good Luck!
 
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