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Recently my work updated OfficeXP (2002) with all the latest updates from Microsoft. One of the problems Ive run into since then is with square brackets ([ and ]).
With Outlook 2002 if you send a file as an attachment, and that attachment has any square brackets in its name, then they are replaced with spaces on reciept. The problem I have is we have thousands of lines of code that relys on a very specific layout of filenames for documentation.
I know that using square brackets in filenames is bad, but it was like that when I started here, and we have several thousand files named in this way, and systems to search and display them that are in place, tested, and working (well, working till last week).
What I want to know is if anybody knows of a way to roll back upgrades? Ive tried using restore points, uninstalling/reinstalling Office, and neither work. Ive uninstalled all updates in 'add/remove software' that let me.
As an ugly workaround I have written a bit of VBA code behind outlook that checks any outgoing email for attachments with []s, and asks the user if they want them encrypted, then it replaces the []s with "ù" and "ú" then on receipt of emails with attachments, replaces those characters with []s again. Obviously this is BAD for a long term fix.
I'm looking into re-doing all the code that deals with the files, but that could take literally months to write, test, and roll-out.
Other information. If you send form outlook to something like gmail, then the []s are ok. If you use older (office97) Outlook, then things are fine. We dont have office2003 yet (dreading to think what MS did to that), but if someone could check, it could be helpful. Just send an empty text document with a name something like "testing[something].txt" to yourself, then save the attachment, and check its filename.
Right, thats long enough.
Thanks for any help.
Allister
With Outlook 2002 if you send a file as an attachment, and that attachment has any square brackets in its name, then they are replaced with spaces on reciept. The problem I have is we have thousands of lines of code that relys on a very specific layout of filenames for documentation.
I know that using square brackets in filenames is bad, but it was like that when I started here, and we have several thousand files named in this way, and systems to search and display them that are in place, tested, and working (well, working till last week).
What I want to know is if anybody knows of a way to roll back upgrades? Ive tried using restore points, uninstalling/reinstalling Office, and neither work. Ive uninstalled all updates in 'add/remove software' that let me.
As an ugly workaround I have written a bit of VBA code behind outlook that checks any outgoing email for attachments with []s, and asks the user if they want them encrypted, then it replaces the []s with "ù" and "ú" then on receipt of emails with attachments, replaces those characters with []s again. Obviously this is BAD for a long term fix.
I'm looking into re-doing all the code that deals with the files, but that could take literally months to write, test, and roll-out.
Other information. If you send form outlook to something like gmail, then the []s are ok. If you use older (office97) Outlook, then things are fine. We dont have office2003 yet (dreading to think what MS did to that), but if someone could check, it could be helpful. Just send an empty text document with a name something like "testing[something].txt" to yourself, then save the attachment, and check its filename.
Right, thats long enough.
Thanks for any help.
Allister
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