Outlook attachment security warning

[David K]

A user on a system running Outlook 2003 under XP isn't able to open
exe files directly from an email attachment. The exe files are
accessible in the email (Outlook does NOT say it has blocked access to
the attachments), but the only options for them are to Save to disk,
or Cancel. No option to Open like there is for some other file types.
From what I understand, this is called Level 2 attachment security.

On the workstation I've modified this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Security
(or 11.0, depending on which version is run on the current
workstation; I've tried it on a couple workstations)

The key contains these these values:
AddWarningFileTypes = "xyz"
RemoveWarningFileTypes = "exe"

Apparently I need the AddWarningFileTypes string before
RemoveWarningFileTypes works, so that's why it's there.

I reboot the system and the user still can't open the attachments.

What could be going on? Any ideas?

In on KB article there was reference to Office 2000 SP1 needing to be
installed to fix this, but these systems are running Office 2002 and
2003 and already have at least SP1 installed.

One KB article suggested that an Exchange setting could be overriding
the workstation registry setting. I'm running Exchange Server 5.5 on
NT4.0, and I couldn't find any setting that applies to this.

Thanks,
Dave

 

[David K]

FOLLOW-UP: I've also tried adding the same values on the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Security
(or 11.0)

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

They can't open attachments or can't open them without saving them first?
When you reduce the security level1 from to 2, you can't open the attachment
directly, you need to save it first. This is by design. if opening
attachments from email is a requirement, try Chilton preview.

The KB you found refers to Ol2000 only. The security admin options are
covered at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/esecup/getexe.htm and
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/esecup.htm


--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



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