Thank you.....and goodbye

[Parish]

Thank you to all here who take the time to answer questions, often the
same question several times a day 'coz people can't be bothered
searching the NG first. You'll be pleased to know that I *have*
searched, and found the answers to all my questions/problems; sadly,
they weren't the answers I was hoping for, so it's......

.....Goodbye Outlook (2002), hello Mozilla Thunderbird.

I've always used Netscape/Mozilla but when I started my current job,
about 4 months ago, the laptop I was given had Outlook all setup, so I
thought, "why not, let's give it a try". Unfortunately, despite my best
efforts and intentions, I just can't get it to work the way I want.

There are four main issues that can't be resolved:

1. Our staff contact details are distributed every month or so as an
Excel spreadsheet which we import into Outlook. Many staff have a
business fax number and for those staff Outlook creates a single entry
in Contacts but two entries appear in the e-mail address selector, one
for e-mail and one for fax; alas you can't tell which is which until
you've added it to To:/Cc:/Bcc: when Outlook adds '(Business Fax)' after
the name. Apparently these double entries can't be suppressed, except by
removing the Business Fax No., even if you never use Outlook for sending
faxes.

2. I want to be able to fetch the e-mail from my personal account
(leaving it on the server so I can grab it all on my home machine as
well). No problem, or so I thought; two accounts, two servers, two
Personal Folders, two Inboxes, but no, Outlook can't handle two Inboxes,
it dumps everything in one and I'm supposed to write one or more filters
to redirect it to the other Inbox. No good I'm afraid. My personal
e-mail gets a lot of spam (up to date AV protects me) and, as we all
know, your real e-mail address is very rarely in the To:/Cc: so I end up
with most/all the spam left in the main (work) Inbox. Not acceptable,
and potentially embarrassing if I'm on a customer's site.

3. Can't view (image) attachments in-line. Duh! WTF not? I read one
reply which suggested it was because business users wouldn't want/need
to view attachments in-line. Heeellllooooo! I'm a business user; I'm a
Software Eng. and often colleagues and customers attach screen grabs to
help illustrate a problem or change so I need to be able to read the
words and see the image. With Outlook I have to save the images, open
them in another program then faff about trying to position the windows
so I can see both. I can't even print the damn thing out; all I get is
the e-mail body with icons for each of the images.

4. This seems to be a current 'hot potato'; the decision by MS to block
certain attachment types, with no option to override the blocking. As a
S/w Eng. I sometimes get send .EXE, .BAT. and .JS files and now I can't
save them. Any mail I get from colleagues passes through at 3 AV scans
and at least one spam-trap (plus I've got the intelligence to recognize
a suspicious e-mail). Our customers are all in the aerospace industry,
where security is tighter than a duck's arse in a hurricane, so anything
from them has probably received even more checking. The usual
"workround", zip "banned" files, is not so easy for our customers
because they can't just "grab a copy of WinZip and install it"; any s/w
has to go through a security/assessment process before it can be used.
At least one customer had to copy his files to a Unix box, gzip-tar
them, copy the tarball back to the PC and then send it.

BTW, don't suggest http://www.slovaktech.com/attachmentoptions.htm as
I've already seen it and don't really want to install something that
messes around with the security features on my PC and, of more concern,
what will happen if (or more likely, _when_, since it's so unpopular) MS
release another patch to undo or modify this blocking behaviour if the
hack has been used; will it screw Outlook up completely? I don't know,
do you?

Outlook has got lots of neat and, if you use them, useful features;
faxing, calendar, tasklist, etc., but I don't use or need them, all I
need is a good e-mail client that allows _me_ to make the decisions and
configure/use it the way I want/need to. Based on using it at home Moz
t-bird gives me what I need, it's not as fully featured as Outlook and,
arguably, not as stable (it may crash, but I've never lost my mailboxes
of addressbook, etc.), as Outlook but then, I don't need all Outlook has
to offer.

I did consider using OE instead but, IIRC, it has some of the same
issues (maybe manifesting themselves in different ways).

Of course, if anyone has solutions to any/all of the above, I'm willing
to try them.

Regards,

Parish

 

[Patricia Cardoza - [MVP Outlook]]

There are workarounds to some of your issues.

1. There are two ways to stop this happening. The first, as you have
discovered is to not store the Business Fax number in the Business Fax
field. You could store it in the Callback field for example. The second (and
probably more workable solution for you) is to append the letter F or the
word FAX: to the front of the numbers. This could be accomplished rather
simply in Excel and there are also utilities that will do this for you in
Outlook (http://www.sperrysoftware.com/Outlook-Hide-Fax-Numbers.asp). Yes,
it is a workaround, but it is a decent one if you never actually use Fax
software within Outlook.

2. The easiest way to do this is to create a separate profile in Outlook.
You can do this by going to Control Panels, choosing Mail and click the Show
Profiles button. You will have to close Outlook to switch profiles, but it
is a workaround.

3. I'm afraid you're mostly out of luck on this one, sorry.

4. Slovaktech's add-in isn't going to "mess" with security features. You can
accomplish the same tasks by editing the registry yourself (a method
Microsoft approves...it's in their KnowledgeBase).
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290497&Product=ol2002
Their intent was to make sure that if you wanted to unblock attachments,
that you really knew you were doing it. In otherwords, they made it so you
have to actively do something to unblock them, rather than just clicking a
simple check box. This registry key method is still supported in Outlook
2003 and there's no indication from them that it will be turned off in the
future. Changing these settings won't mess up anything else on your computer
and I've personally had this registry key set for 2 years now both with
Attachment Options and without and I've done reinstalls and upgrades many
times with no adverse effects.

The suggestions I've posed here might not be enough to keep you using
Outlook but they should help at least.

--
Patricia Cardoza
Outlook MVP
www.cardozasolutions.com

Author, Special Edition Using Microsoft Outlook 2003

***Please post all replies to the newsgroups***

 

[Crash Gordon]

| Thank you to all here who take the time to answer questions, often the
| same question several times a day 'coz people can't be bothered
| searching the NG first. You'll be pleased to know that I *have*
| searched, and found the answers to all my questions/problems; sadly,
| they weren't the answers I was hoping for, so it's......
|
| ....Goodbye Outlook (2002), hello Mozilla Thunderbird.
|
| I've always used Netscape/Mozilla but when I started my current job,
| about 4 months ago, the laptop I was given had Outlook all setup, so I
| thought, "why not, let's give it a try". Unfortunately, despite my best
| efforts and intentions, I just can't get it to work the way I want.
|
| There are four main issues that can't be resolved:
|
| 1. Our staff contact details are distributed every month or so as an
| Excel spreadsheet which we import into Outlook. Many staff have a
| business fax number and for those staff Outlook creates a single entry
| in Contacts but two entries appear in the e-mail address selector, one
| for e-mail and one for fax; alas you can't tell which is which until
| you've added it to To:/Cc:/Bcc: when Outlook adds '(Business Fax)' after
| the name. Apparently these double entries can't be suppressed, except by
| removing the Business Fax No., even if you never use Outlook for sending
| faxes.
|
| 2. I want to be able to fetch the e-mail from my personal account
| (leaving it on the server so I can grab it all on my home machine as
| well). No problem, or so I thought; two accounts, two servers, two
| Personal Folders, two Inboxes, but no, Outlook can't handle two Inboxes,
| it dumps everything in one and I'm supposed to write one or more filters
| to redirect it to the other Inbox. No good I'm afraid. My personal
| e-mail gets a lot of spam (up to date AV protects me) and, as we all
| know, your real e-mail address is very rarely in the To:/Cc: so I end up
| with most/all the spam left in the main (work) Inbox. Not acceptable,
| and potentially embarrassing if I'm on a customer's site.

I have 10 Inboxes...or more correctly one Inbox with 10 subfolders. Very easy to write a rule to distribute incoming mail to the appropriate box.

You may want to look into MailWasher I use it a lot...it's free and very effective AND stable. It's a pre-download-preview-email-blocker-thingie




|
| 3. Can't view (image) attachments in-line. Duh! WTF not? I read one
| reply which suggested it was because business users wouldn't want/need
| to view attachments in-line. Heeellllooooo! I'm a business user; I'm a
| Software Eng. and often colleagues and customers attach screen grabs to
| help illustrate a problem or change so I need to be able to read the
| words and see the image. With Outlook I have to save the images, open
| them in another program then faff about trying to position the windows
| so I can see both. I can't even print the damn thing out; all I get is
| the e-mail body with icons for each of the images.

If you Open the email rather than Preview it, when you right click on the image icons you can view them with whatever your default image viewer is - and print them as well. Common user issue, but a piece of cake once discoverd.



|
| 4. This seems to be a current 'hot potato'; the decision by MS to block
| certain attachment types, with no option to override the blocking. As a
| S/w Eng. I sometimes get send .EXE, .BAT. and .JS files and now I can't
| save them. Any mail I get from colleagues passes through at 3 AV scans
| and at least one spam-trap (plus I've got the intelligence to recognize
| a suspicious e-mail). Our customers are all in the aerospace industry,
| where security is tighter than a duck's arse in a hurricane, so anything
| from them has probably received even more checking. The usual
| "workround", zip "banned" files, is not so easy for our customers
| because they can't just "grab a copy of WinZip and install it"; any s/w
| has to go through a security/assessment process before it can be used.
| At least one customer had to copy his files to a Unix box, gzip-tar
| them, copy the tarball back to the PC and then send it.


Not sure about this one...I get emails all the time with these types of attachements...may be the same issue as the previous question...try opening the email first then try to save it. Either that or you have a security setting somewhere that needs to be "adjusted".


|
| BTW, don't suggest http://www.slovaktech.com/attachmentoptions.htm as
| I've already seen it and don't really want to install something that
| messes around with the security features on my PC and, of more concern,
| what will happen if (or more likely, _when_, since it's so unpopular) MS
| release another patch to undo or modify this blocking behaviour if the
| hack has been used; will it screw Outlook up completely? I don't know,
| do you?
|
| Outlook has got lots of neat and, if you use them, useful features;
| faxing, calendar, tasklist, etc., but I don't use or need them, all I
| need is a good e-mail client that allows _me_ to make the decisions and
| configure/use it the way I want/need to. Based on using it at home Moz
| t-bird gives me what I need, it's not as fully featured as Outlook and,
| arguably, not as stable (it may crash, but I've never lost my mailboxes
| of addressbook, etc.), as Outlook but then, I don't need all Outlook has
| to offer.
|
| I did consider using OE instead but, IIRC, it has some of the same
| issues (maybe manifesting themselves in different ways).
|
| Of course, if anyone has solutions to any/all of the above, I'm willing
| to try them.
|
| Regards,
|
| Parish

 

[Brian W]

Agree.

-----Original Message-----
Thank you to all here who take the time to answer questions, often the
same question several times a day 'coz people can't be bothered
searching the NG first. You'll be pleased to know that I *have*
searched, and found the answers to all my questions/problems; sadly,
they weren't the answers I was hoping for, so it's......

.....Goodbye Outlook (2002), hello Mozilla Thunderbird.

I've always used Netscape/Mozilla but when I started my current job,
about 4 months ago, the laptop I was given had Outlook all setup, so I
thought, "why not, let's give it a try". Unfortunately, despite my best
efforts and intentions, I just can't get it to work the way I want.

There are four main issues that can't be resolved:

1. Our staff contact details are distributed every month or so as an
Excel spreadsheet which we import into Outlook. Many staff have a
business fax number and for those staff Outlook creates a single entry
in Contacts but two entries appear in the e-mail address selector, one
for e-mail and one for fax; alas you can't tell which is which until
you've added it to To:/Cc:/Bcc: when Outlook adds '(Business Fax)' after
the name. Apparently these double entries can't be suppressed, except by
removing the Business Fax No., even if you never use Outlook for sending
faxes.

2. I want to be able to fetch the e-mail from my personal account
(leaving it on the server so I can grab it all on my home machine as
well). No problem, or so I thought; two accounts, two servers, two
Personal Folders, two Inboxes, but no, Outlook can't handle two Inboxes,
it dumps everything in one and I'm supposed to write one or more filters
to redirect it to the other Inbox. No good I'm afraid. My personal
e-mail gets a lot of spam (up to date AV protects me) and, as we all
know, your real e-mail address is very rarely in the To:/Cc: so I end up
with most/all the spam left in the main (work) Inbox. Not acceptable,
and potentially embarrassing if I'm on a customer's site.

3. Can't view (image) attachments in-line. Duh! WTF not? I read one
reply which suggested it was because business users wouldn't want/need
to view attachments in-line. Heeellllooooo! I'm a business user; I'm a
Software Eng. and often colleagues and customers attach screen grabs to
help illustrate a problem or change so I need to be able to read the
words and see the image. With Outlook I have to save the images, open
them in another program then faff about trying to position the windows
so I can see both. I can't even print the damn thing out; all I get is
the e-mail body with icons for each of the images.

4. This seems to be a current 'hot potato'; the decision by MS to block
certain attachment types, with no option to override the blocking. As a
S/w Eng. I sometimes get send .EXE, .BAT. and .JS files and now I can't
save them. Any mail I get from colleagues passes through at 3 AV scans
and at least one spam-trap (plus I've got the intelligence to recognize
a suspicious e-mail). Our customers are all in the aerospace industry,
where security is tighter than a duck's arse in a hurricane, so anything
from them has probably received even more checking. The usual
"workround", zip "banned" files, is not so easy for our customers
because they can't just "grab a copy of WinZip and install it"; any s/w
has to go through a security/assessment process before it can be used.
At least one customer had to copy his files to a Unix box, gzip-tar
them, copy the tarball back to the PC and then send it.

BTW, don't suggest

http://www.slovaktech.com/attachmentoptions.htm as

 

[Roady [MVP]]

To add on what Patricia already mentioned;

1) If you decide to order use "BH93RF24" to get a discount. The add-ins from
Sperry Software are compatible with Outlook 2000, 2002 and 2003

4) You can also control this by the Outlook Group Policy template (adm-file)
you'll find in the Office Resource Kit. If you are running an Exchange
server you can also this on the Exchange server by means of a security
template.

--
Roady [MVP]
www.sparnaaij.net
Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office related News
Also Outlook FAQ, How To's, Downloads and more...

Tips of the month:
-Create your own fully customized Toolbar
-Creating a Classic View in Outlook 2003
Subscribe to the newsletter to receive news and tips & tricks in your
mailbox!
www.sparnaaij.net

(I changed my reply address; remove all CAPS and _underscores_ from the
address when mailing)

 

[*Vanguard*]

"Parish" said in news:[email protected]:

Thank you to all here who take the time to answer questions, often the
same question several times a day 'coz people can't be bothered
searching the NG first. You'll be pleased to know that I *have*
searched, and found the answers to all my questions/problems; sadly,
they weren't the answers I was hoping for, so it's......

....Goodbye Outlook (2002), hello Mozilla Thunderbird.

I've always used Netscape/Mozilla but when I started my current job,
about 4 months ago, the laptop I was given had Outlook all setup, so I
thought, "why not, let's give it a try". Unfortunately, despite my
best efforts and intentions, I just can't get it to work the way I
want.

There are four main issues that can't be resolved:

1. Our staff contact details are distributed every month or so as an
Excel spreadsheet which we import into Outlook. Many staff have a
business fax number and for those staff Outlook creates a single entry
in Contacts but two entries appear in the e-mail address selector, one
for e-mail and one for fax; alas you can't tell which is which until
you've added it to To:/Cc:/Bcc: when Outlook adds '(Business Fax)'
after the name. Apparently these double entries can't be suppressed,
except by removing the Business Fax No., even if you never use
Outlook for sending faxes.

Is everyone in your organization required to use Outlook to connect to their
mail server (Exchange)? If so, the idiot is the one that is inserting the
telephone number for the faxes in the column but adding a prefix, like
"Fax:", before each number to ensure all the orgnization's users aren't
afflicted with the same deficiency in Outlook to differentiate between
object types. It's an easy change. Tell whomever is managing the list to
do a global edit in that column to prefix an alpha string to the fax
numbers.

Name one program that doesn't have a bug in it? Does that really prevent
you from using that software? Do you use a workaround, or do you quit and
not get the job done?

2. I want to be able to fetch the e-mail from my personal account
(leaving it on the server so I can grab it all on my home machine as
well). No problem, or so I thought; two accounts, two servers, two
Personal Folders, two Inboxes, but no, Outlook can't handle two
Inboxes, it dumps everything in one and I'm supposed to write one or
more filters to redirect it to the other Inbox. No good I'm afraid.
My personal e-mail gets a lot of spam (up to date AV protects me)
and, as we all know, your real e-mail address is very rarely in the
To:/Cc: so I end up with most/all the spam left in the main (work)
Inbox. Not acceptable, and potentially embarrassing if I'm on a
customer's site.

You used the wrong rule. Don't filter and sort according to what is in the
To, CC, From, Reply-To or any other header which the *sender* puts in their
data that they send in the DATA command to their SMTP server. The sender
can put whatever they want in those headers. The message actually gets
delivered to whomever is specified in the RCPT command the sender issues to
their SMTP server.

Since you have separate accounts being polled by Outlook, use the rule to
sort according through which account the e-mail was yanked. The problem
wasn't that Outlook couldn't do what you wanted. The problem was you
couldn't figure out how to make Outlook do what it could do for what you
wanted.

3. Can't view (image) attachments in-line. Duh! WTF not? I read one
reply which suggested it was because business users wouldn't want/need
to view attachments in-line. Heeellllooooo! I'm a business user; I'm a
Software Eng. and often colleagues and customers attach screen grabs
to help illustrate a problem or change so I need to be able to read
the words and see the image.

Be very happy that ALL your customers send you graphic attachments in a
format that is common, like JPEG, GIF, or Bitmap. You have no control over
what application or viewer is needed to use an attachment. Outlook is a PIM
(personal information manager) that has e-mail functions. Its purpose is
not to supplant an entire product dedicated to providing viewers for 150, or
more, file formats.

So you can really see screen captures in a wee little view window inside the
preview pane. Man, what's that fantastic dot pitch on your monitor that
allows such dense but tiny images to remain sharp enough for the human eye
to view? Bet you can't decipher much unless it's a capture of a really
small portion of their screen. Whether it is in a book or on a monitor, you
will still need to flip your eyes between the text and the image. Only if
you focus on neither in particular can you see both. So using Alt-Tab to
switch is a real hassle as opposed to trying to read tiny text and images in
a small-sized viewer window inside the preview pane which occupies less than
half the window size of Outlook?

Also, if you are working on your customers' reported problems and they send
you a screen capture, why are you leaving that portion of their problem
report in your e-mail file? Since when is the e-mail store considered so
reliable that it gets used for data storage? You are expected to save that
attachment where it belongs, in your problem reporting system along with all
your descriptions, notes, correspondence, status, and whatnot. If you
really need that attachment, it will be used elsehwere; in a document, saved
in a problem reporting tool, in a brochure, or someplace else. Nobody keeps
e-mail around for data storage of screen dumps regarding problem reports
since then no one else could ever find it or even realize where to look.

If these are repeat customers and/or colleagues sending you graphic images
with their message, they are incapable of inserting the image inline so it
appears within the body of the message instead of separately as an
attachment? They don't know how to use copy & paste (rather than insert a
file)? If they don't bother to first look at the graphic (by opening it
which means they could then copy to later do a paste), how do they know it
is viewable and shows what they think it will show?

4. This seems to be a current 'hot potato'; the decision by MS to
block certain attachment types, with no option to override the
blocking.

The majority of sales of Outlook are NOT to personal or home users. It is
to business. In a business environment, attachments can still be controlled
regarding access through registry or mail server settings. Just because you
don't want to bother making the registry change doesn't mean the product
can't perform. Take a look at Internet Options (whether ran from IE's Tools
menu or from the Control Panel) under the Security tab. Do you see the "My
Computer" security zone? Probably not but a registry change will show it.
In fact, the registry key already exists but simply needs to be enabled so
that zone appears in Internet Options -> Security. If you recall, we used
to have tons of .ini files to edit to manage configuration changes for the
operating system and for applications. Now we have the registry. Edit an
..ini file or edit the registry. It's the same thing! It's your choice not
to bother with configuring the program. Amazing how many users never even
bother to try a search at Microsoft's own support site
(http://support.microsoft.com/).

You Cannot Open Attachments in Outlook 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=829982

Or ask and get help on the problem and you'll also probably get told about:

http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/esecup/getexe.htm

Plus you can find utilities there so you don't even have to bother delving
into the registry if that really frightens you, like AttachmentOptions which
lets you pick which extensions are hazardous, which are not. If you cannot
edit .ini files, including the big INI file called the registry then, at
least, this provides a GUI for you.

As a S/w Eng. I sometimes get send .EXE, .BAT. and .JS
files and now I can't save them.

And apparently none of these senders ever considers the hazard of executable
attachments, huh? It wouldn't matter if you disabled all of the attachment
security in Outlook, used a version prior to the security update, or used a
different e-mail program. Your senders should NOT be sending you .exe or
other files that are immediately executable. They should be renaming them
to, say, .exx or appending a .txt to the filename to ensure that the
recipient cannot accidentally run the file. Sure they think their file is
okay (which is only controllable at their end and not during transfer)
assuming they even bother to check. Sure the file is virus, trojan,
malware, and spyware free but that doesn't mean the program might not be,
say, a disk formatter. Politely remind your senders that you would prefer
they .zip up the file before attaching it or to, at least, rename its
extension or append a non-executable extension.

Our customers
are all in the aerospace industry, where security is tighter than a
duck's arse in a hurricane, so anything from them has probably
received even more checking.

Apparently not since they are willing to send a file that is inherently
immediately executable. Even if I was in the munitions field, I definitely
wouldn't expect someone from whom I was expecting the shipment of a new
design bomb to put it all together and arm it so it was a live bomb on
receipt. I know it's coming, I asked for it, the sender told me it's
coming, but I sure don't want a live bomb showing up at my desk! But that's
what you say your senders are doing with their attachments.

The usual "workround", zip "banned"
files, is not so easy for our customers because they can't just "grab
a copy of WinZip and install it"; any s/w has to go through a
security/assessment process before it can be used.

The use of file archiving software should only be seen as a recommendation,
especially since you will be expected to pay for it if not freeware, like
UltimateZip. Rather than .zip it or use any other software, just rename the
extension. Use .exx instead of .exe, .c0m instead of .com, .j_s instead of
..js, and so on. Everyone can rename the extension without any additional
software. The renamed file cannot be accidentally executed. It is not
delivered as a live bomb. The recipient must first rename the file, so
obviously they have overtly and deliberately decided to execute that file.
That is way better than a bunch of prompts that the user gets accustomed to
and simply skips to still manage to accidentally execute the program.

BTW, don't suggest http://www.slovaktech.com/attachmentoptions.htm as
I've already seen it and don't really want to install something that
messes around with the security features on my PC and, of more
concern, what will happen if (or more likely, _when_, since it's so
unpopular) MS release another patch to undo or modify this blocking
behaviour if the hack has been used; will it screw Outlook up
completely? I don't know, do you?

Then don't. Follow Microsoft's own KB articles telling you to set the
configuration settings for their own software. Your choice if you want to
do it manually. Gee, what happens if the Start menu is no longer called
"Start" but instead gets renamed to "Menu"? Will that stop you from using
whatever it is called to access your shortcuts? Why do you think we are
still using FAT, old programs, trying to make Windows a multi-user OS by
adding more software? Because of compatibility. Tons of crap gets carried
along for compatibility. If the registry settings disappear then the
product for it no longer is support and has been out of circulation long
enough to consider it of no importance to support anymore. Are you still
going to be using Outlook or Mozilla in another 5 years from now? Even
then, guess what, they'll be another KB article telling you how to reinstate
those registry keys (assuming we are still using a registry database) for
that old, unsupported, seldom used program.

Outlook has got lots of neat and, if you use them, useful features;
faxing, calendar, tasklist, etc., but I don't use or need them, all I
need is a good e-mail client that allows _me_ to make the decisions
and configure/use it the way I want/need to. Based on using it at
home Moz t-bird gives me what I need, it's not as fully featured as
Outlook and, arguably, not as stable (it may crash, but I've never
lost my mailboxes of addressbook, etc.), as Outlook but then, I don't
need all Outlook has to offer.

Yes, you definitely need to use what best suits your needs within your
budget. You don't pick an operating system and then figure out what
applications you can use. You pick the required applications that are
available (or can be readily produced) and then pick the OS that supports
them. Outlook is a PIM, not an e-mail only client. E-mail got added to
Outlook. E-mail is not the primary use of Outlook unless that's how YOU use
it. There's no point in driving a mobile home to work when all you need is
your commuter car. If I didn't have a need to journal my activities,
schedule appointments in a calendar, monitor my pending tasks, and have
handy notes all in the same place then I wouldn't use Outlook. Using
Outlook *only* for e-mail is like hunting deer with a howitzer. I do like
the richer set of rules available in Outlook, but I can compensate with
anti-spam software that includes regular expressions.

I did consider using OE instead but, IIRC, it has some of the same
issues (maybe manifesting themselves in different ways).

I had tried Mozilla Thunderbird and had issues with it at that time (don't
remember them now). Seem to recall that *I* (and that's me in what *I*
would want in the product) didn't find anything compelling to draw me away
OE. A few extras or maybe a couple better features but nothing compelling.
Might've been it was too beta the last time I checked.

It's always best to keep your options open. I have MS Office XP installed
but maybe I might try or move to OpenOffice, especially if I have to pay out
of pocket later or decide to switch away from Windows. There's no point in
remaining steadfast and loyal to a product that doesn't do what you want
*if* there is a better alternative for your needs. However, are you sure
nothing of Mozilla Thunderbird uses the registry? That later versions of
Mozilla will conflict with the definitions or use of old registry values?
You'll never have to edit the registry to modify the behavior of
Thunderbird? Does it provide a huge set of file viewers to make
incorporating an optional slide show that consumes space within the view of
your e-mail to make it a plausible previewer for more than one or two file
formats? Will it automatically .zip up all attachments (preferrably as
separate .zip files instead of smashing them into a single .zip attachment),
or are there 3rd party (and freebie) utilities to do that for you so you
don't end up delivering live bombs to your recipients? How does the breadth
and robustness of rules in Thunderbird compare to Outlook?

 

[Brian Tillman]

1. Our staff contact details are distributed every month or so as an
Excel spreadsheet which we import into Outlook. Many staff have a
business fax number and for those staff Outlook creates a single entry
in Contacts but two entries appear in the e-mail address selector, one
for e-mail and one for fax; alas you can't tell which is which until
you've added it to To:/Cc:/Bcc: when Outlook adds '(Business Fax)'
after the name.

Not true. The Address Book that appears when you click the "To" button has
the type (SMTP, FAX, etc) at the right of the entry if you simply slide the
horizontal position bar over. Moreover, you can SEE the address quite
clearly if you widen the fields by dragging the title bar width lines.

Apparently these double entries can't be suppressed,
except by removing the Business Fax No., even if you never use
Outlook for sending faxes.

Wrong again. You can add the word "FAX" to the front of the phone number,
thus convincing Outlook that it's not really a phone number and shouldn't be
displayed.

2. I want to be able to fetch the e-mail from my personal account
(leaving it on the server so I can grab it all on my home machine as
well). No problem, or so I thought; two accounts, two servers, two
Personal Folders, two Inboxes, but no, Outlook can't handle two
Inboxes, it dumps everything in one and I'm supposed to write one or
more filters to redirect it to the other Inbox. No good I'm afraid.

Simply solved with two profiles.

3. Can't view (image) attachments in-line.

This one, I agree, remains an issue.

With Outlook I have to save the images,
open them in another program then faff about trying to position the
windows so I can see both.

I just double-click the attachment and up it pops.

4. This seems to be a current 'hot potato'; the decision by MS to
block certain attachment types, with no option to override the
blocking.

Easily addressed with freeware add-ins.

BTW, don't suggest http://www.slovaktech.com/attachmentoptions.htm as
I've already seen it and don't really want to install something that
messes around with the security features on my PC

So, you trust _Microsoft_ to mess with the security settings of your PC, but
not Mr. Slovak? Hell, it is Microsoft's stupid child programmers who caused
all this virus mess in the first place. If they used half a brain and
stopped making user agents _execute_ e-mail instead of simply _presenting_
it, none of this would ever have been an issue in the first place.

and, of more
concern, what will happen if (or more likely, _when_, since it's so
unpopular) MS release another patch to undo or modify this blocking
behaviour if the hack has been used; will it screw Outlook up
completely? I don't know, do you?

Trust Microsft to screw it up EVERY time they release a new version, whether
ot not you use a third-party add-in to help you. That's been their modus
operadi since they began selling software.

Outlook has got lots of neat and, if you use them, useful features;
faxing, calendar, tasklist, etc., but I don't use or need them,

This alone would certainly justify your choice of a different program. It's
a rational consideration, as opposed to some of your other emotional ones.

I did consider using OE instead but, IIRC, it has some of the same
issues (maybe manifesting themselves in different ways).

It doesn't seem to have the ones you've pointed out, at least as far as I
can see, but perhaps there are other issues you elected not to present.
--
Brian Tillman
Smiths Aerospace
3290 Patterson Ave. SE, MS 1B3
Grand Rapids, MI 49512-1991
Brian.Tillman is the name, smiths-aerospace.com is the domain.

I don't speak for Smiths, and Smiths doesn't speak for me.

 

[Brian Tillman]

And apparently none of these senders ever considers the hazard of
executable attachments, huh?

Sorry, but this is the tail wagging the dog. Email clients shouldn't EVER
_execute_ an attachment. That's stupidity in the extreme.
--
Brian Tillman
Smiths Aerospace
3290 Patterson Ave. SE, MS 1B3
Grand Rapids, MI 49512-1991
Brian.Tillman is the name, smiths-aerospace.com is the domain.

I don't speak for Smiths, and Smiths doesn't speak for me.

 

[*Vanguard*]

"Brian Tillman" said in

Sorry, but this is the tail wagging the dog. Email clients shouldn't
EVER _execute_ an attachment. That's stupidity in the extreme.

You have an e-mail client that becomes a command interpreter that will load
the attachment file into memory and start its execution? On Windows using
Outlook or OE, a shell or application runs the attachment file if you decide
to run it. You clicking on Open in the dialog to choose what to do with the
attachment does NOT have the e-mail client run the attachment. But I get
your point and that was my point, too, that no one should be sending a live
bomb through e-mail by using an extension for the attachment's filename that
renders it an executable file. With Windows, the extension determines the
server application that will load the file, and some extensions are
executable. So receiving something like "formatdisk.exe" could be very bad
news to the recipient.

A more appropriate security measure would have been for the e-mail client to
rename every "bad" attachment (those that have extensions like .exe, .com,
..js, .vbs, and so on) in a received e-mail so it has an non-executable
extension (since that's how Windows associates filetypes to what program is
used to load and run it). If the Windows e-mail client renamed every
attachment in a received e-mail by appending ".ATT", ".HAZ", ".XXX", or
whatever was deemed appropriate, we wouldn't be screwing around with this
stupid security block. The attachment couldn't executed until the user
saved it and renamed it to remove the security extension. So attachment
"formatdisk.exe.att" won't get accidentally executed and the recipient knows
how to rename the file (by removing ".att") without having to be told what
is the correct extension to make it executable if they so choose. I suppose
some virus could alter the e-mail client's behavior so it did not append the
security extension, but then a virus could also alter the registry so that
..exe was no longer a Level 1 blocked filetype. It would be much harder for
a virus to alter a fixed and hardcoded behavior in the code of the e-mail
client than to alter registry values (although I can the using a plug-in
could do the job just as easily).

In fact, using a security extension is what I do. I use SpamPal to detect
spam e-mails. It has an HTML-Modify plug-in which has an option to rename
all attachments with "bad" extensions to append a ".TXT' extension, so no
bad attachment will ever be executable. Not until I save the file and
rename it can it be executed, but obviously I've taken several deliberate
and overt steps to make the file executable. Basically I defuse all those
live bombs that senders might e-mail to me. Some folks just don't think
farther ahead than their next breath.

 

[Brian Tillman]

You have an e-mail client that becomes a command interpreter that
will load the attachment file into memory and start its execution?
On Windows using Outlook or OE, a shell or application runs the
attachment file if you decide to run it.

Until quite recently, Outlook, at least, would run the app if the preview
pane was open. An Email client should NEVER be an active agent and should
never allow running a program from within the mail application. It should
REQUIRE one to save the attachment to disk no matter what its file type.
Moreover, no account should have elevated privileges by default, so that,
even if one were to run a malicious application, it couldn't take out the
system.

A more appropriate security measure would have been for the e-mail
client to rename every "bad" attachment (those that have extensions
like .exe, .com, .js, .vbs, and so on) in a received e-mail so it has
an non-executable extension (since that's how Windows associates
filetypes to what program is used to load and run it).

I'll disagree. It shouldn't matter what the file type is.
--
Brian Tillman
Smiths Aerospace
3290 Patterson Ave. SE, MS 1B3
Grand Rapids, MI 49512-1991
Brian.Tillman is the name, smiths-aerospace.com is the domain.

I don't speak for Smiths, and Smiths doesn't speak for me.