Outlook 2003 hangs when receiving attachments with non-Western (Simplified Chinese) characters in th

[SSD]

We have a problem with Outlook 2003 hanging / locking up when receiving
certain emails. We have narrowed it down to emails with attachments
containing non-Western characters in the attachment's filename;
specifically, Simplified Chinese characters. I should also note if you
rename the attachment to remove the non-Western characters before
attaching/sending, there is no lock up.

If we use Task Manager to kill Outlook and relaunch, everything is fine
(meaning, the "suspect" emails are visible and they can be opened / read /
replied to / etc). The type of attachment appears to be irrelevant, as doc,
xls, pdf, bmp and txt files all have the problem. Again, the problem
appears to be related to the non-Western characters in the filename.

A little bit about our environment ...

Servers ==> Windows 2003 Servers, Exchange 2003 (all fully patched / fixed /
service packed)
Clients ==> XP Pro, XPSP2, Office / Outlook 2003 with SP2 (all fully patched
/ fixed / service packed)

Has anyone else heard about or experienced this issue? Resolution??

TIA for any assistance ...

Jim

 

[SSD]

As a followup to this message, I think I found a solution:

Start > Settings > Control Panel
Regional and Language Options
The Languages tab
If necessary, enable "Install files for complex script ... "
<reboot>
Start > Settings > Control Panel
Regional and Language Options
The Advanced tab
Change the Language drop-down to Chinese (PRC)
<reboot>

After making these settings changes, Outlook did not lock up on the problem
machines anymore. We use a standard image, but some machines have the
problem while others do not. More M$ weirdness, I suppose ...

The next question is, how do I make these changes programmatically so I
don't have to visit a bunch of machines?

~Jim