WINMAIL.DAT

A

antioch

An association I belong to has some 500 plus members, and over the last year
or so, all have been collected together for contact via email only, rather
than letter.
Over the last few months it has become apparent, that most have not been
receiving or have been unable to open, news items and flyers for
events[always as a pdf], that have been attached to emails. It has been a
shock to find the number of members who have never bothered to inform the
office that they were not receiving/could not open attachments. I have many
times and I have received the info via the post.
I appreciate that I may not have given sufficient tech info regarding the
full office set-up - so please ask away and I will get this info.
The office sending these emails, are using Win XP SP3 with Office 2007 and
Outlook 2003.
For the past couple of months, the office secretary and a few others, have
been trying to sort this problem, by following advice via forums and MS help
and support.
I have been one of those recipients who finds nothing attached to the
email - not even a .dat file, let alone a winmail.dat. I am using XP SP3
with Win Live Mail.
It is known by a few members that I 'frequent' the MS Newsgroups so I have
been asked to help sort their problem.
This week I requested that they set up my email address as a contact on its
own. When done they were to send the last flyer as an attachment, in plain
text, HTML and rich text.
This was done and in all three cases I received the email with no
attachments at all.
I was assured that in the open page of Outlook, the format was set for each
type and that again, when the email was composed, they again set the format
from the menu bar in the email.
As you can imaging, with 500 odd people in the mailing list, the type of
email client being used is across a very broad spectrum.
So, short of suggesting that all members download and install a suitable
reader, how can the central office, cater for all members, without selecting
each contact's email to configure that to receive in plain text.
What is interesting, is that where I work, we use XP SP3 with Office 2007
and Outlook 2007. Yet the 3 test emails sent to me at work, had the
attachment yet they would/could not be opened.
I will speak to our IT man on his next visit. I have, however, been able to
send from my work to my home, all sorts of attachments without any problem
at all.
The association office has spoken to and received advice from their local
computer man, who has not been able to progress further than what I have
already got them to try i.e. the formatting part.

Sorry re the length of this thread.

Rgds
Antioch
 
T

Tom Willett

Stop sending the emails in RTF from Outlook. It's not compatible with other
mail clients. Use plain text or HTML (sometimes HTML will also be a problem)



: An association I belong to has some 500 plus members, and over the last
year
: or so, all have been collected together for contact via email only, rather
: than letter.
: Over the last few months it has become apparent, that most have not been
: receiving or have been unable to open, news items and flyers for
: events[always as a pdf], that have been attached to emails. It has been a
: shock to find the number of members who have never bothered to inform the
: office that they were not receiving/could not open attachments. I have
many
: times and I have received the info via the post.
: I appreciate that I may not have given sufficient tech info regarding the
: full office set-up - so please ask away and I will get this info.
: The office sending these emails, are using Win XP SP3 with Office 2007 and
: Outlook 2003.
: For the past couple of months, the office secretary and a few others, have
: been trying to sort this problem, by following advice via forums and MS
help
: and support.
: I have been one of those recipients who finds nothing attached to the
: email - not even a .dat file, let alone a winmail.dat. I am using XP SP3
: with Win Live Mail.
: It is known by a few members that I 'frequent' the MS Newsgroups so I have
: been asked to help sort their problem.
: This week I requested that they set up my email address as a contact on
its
: own. When done they were to send the last flyer as an attachment, in
plain
: text, HTML and rich text.
: This was done and in all three cases I received the email with no
: attachments at all.
: I was assured that in the open page of Outlook, the format was set for
each
: type and that again, when the email was composed, they again set the
format
: from the menu bar in the email.
: As you can imaging, with 500 odd people in the mailing list, the type of
: email client being used is across a very broad spectrum.
: So, short of suggesting that all members download and install a suitable
: reader, how can the central office, cater for all members, without
selecting
: each contact's email to configure that to receive in plain text.
: What is interesting, is that where I work, we use XP SP3 with Office 2007
: and Outlook 2007. Yet the 3 test emails sent to me at work, had the
: attachment yet they would/could not be opened.
: I will speak to our IT man on his next visit. I have, however, been able
to
: send from my work to my home, all sorts of attachments without any problem
: at all.
: The association office has spoken to and received advice from their local
: computer man, who has not been able to progress further than what I have
: already got them to try i.e. the formatting part.
:
: Sorry re the length of this thread.
:
: Rgds
: Antioch
:
:
:
:
 
P

Peter Foldes

Adding to Tom's reply. Norton and MacAfee are known to strip attachments in some
email clients when they are set to scan emails

--
Peter

Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged.

antioch said:
An association I belong to has some 500 plus members, and over the last year or
so, all have been collected together for contact via email only, rather than
letter.
Over the last few months it has become apparent, that most have not been receiving
or have been unable to open, news items and flyers for events[always as a pdf],
that have been attached to emails. It has been a shock to find the number of
members who have never bothered to inform the office that they were not
receiving/could not open attachments. I have many times and I have received the
info via the post.
I appreciate that I may not have given sufficient tech info regarding the full
office set-up - so please ask away and I will get this info.
The office sending these emails, are using Win XP SP3 with Office 2007 and Outlook
2003.
For the past couple of months, the office secretary and a few others, have been
trying to sort this problem, by following advice via forums and MS help and
support.
I have been one of those recipients who finds nothing attached to the email - not
even a .dat file, let alone a winmail.dat. I am using XP SP3 with Win Live Mail.
It is known by a few members that I 'frequent' the MS Newsgroups so I have been
asked to help sort their problem.
This week I requested that they set up my email address as a contact on its own.
When done they were to send the last flyer as an attachment, in plain text, HTML
and rich text.
This was done and in all three cases I received the email with no attachments at
all.
I was assured that in the open page of Outlook, the format was set for each type
and that again, when the email was composed, they again set the format from the
menu bar in the email.
As you can imaging, with 500 odd people in the mailing list, the type of email
client being used is across a very broad spectrum.
So, short of suggesting that all members download and install a suitable reader,
how can the central office, cater for all members, without selecting each
contact's email to configure that to receive in plain text.
What is interesting, is that where I work, we use XP SP3 with Office 2007 and
Outlook 2007. Yet the 3 test emails sent to me at work, had the attachment yet
they would/could not be opened.
I will speak to our IT man on his next visit. I have, however, been able to send
from my work to my home, all sorts of attachments without any problem at all.
The association office has spoken to and received advice from their local computer
man, who has not been able to progress further than what I have already got them
to try i.e. the formatting part.

Sorry re the length of this thread.

Rgds
Antioch
 
A

antioch

Tom Willett said:
Stop sending the emails in RTF from Outlook. It's not compatible with
other
mail clients. Use plain text or HTML (sometimes HTML will also be a
problem)

Hello Tom
Just saying 'stop sending etc etc' is not very helpful. And I realise that
Outlook is not compatible with other email clients, whether web based or
not.
I have already said that test emails were sent with an attachment, having
been formatted in Plain Text and the other format choices. This is what is
being attempted. It did not work.

Quote-
When done they were to send the last flyer as an attachment, in plain
: text, HTML and rich text.
: This was done and in all three cases I received the email with no
: attachments at all.
: I was assured that in the open page of Outlook, the format was set for
each
: type and that again, when the email was composed, they again set the
format from the menu bar in the email.

Rgds
Antioch
 
A

antioch

Peter Foldes said:
Adding to Tom's reply. Norton and MacAfee are known to strip attachments
in some email clients when they are set to scan emails

--
Peter

Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged.

Hello Peter
I do not use either Norton or MacAfee - I have been around the newsgroups
long enough to learn that.
In any case, my AV is set to not scan in and out as advised/recommended in
these newsgroups.
I am currently using Security Essentials.

Rgds
Antioch
 
P

Peter Foldes

I am talking about your associate that sends out the email. The issue is at his end
.. Anyway that is how it sounds like from your post
 
A

antioch

Hello Peter
Thanks for the clarification, but why would the associate's AV/Security
block the sending? Surely it would block the emails with the attachment to
ALL in the group contact list. This not the case. So far it has been shown
that only those with Outlook are able to open and read the winmail.dat
attachment.
I can see why mine might stop it arriving and being opened.

I think that the only method is to take each individual email address in the
contact group and set each to only receive in plain text - plus of course,
setting it as the default method of sending.

Rgds
Antioch
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top