Email client help - anybody with suggestions?

[LvR]

Trivial but real irritating problem:

Out of my whole address book, I have exactly 2 people that constantly cause hassles on my side when they send mail with attachments.

Any attachments these guys send never gets indicated as being present in Outlook Express (6.00.2900.2180) that I use because of other constraints, and as a result I never get to view the attachments no matter what I do. (No its not the 2 tick-marks in OE's tools > options > security panel that prevents/hides attachments)

Lots of investigation has brought me to this.

Looking at the messages these guys send and investigating the source (properties > details > message source), I find reference to the mentioned supposed problematic "winmail.dat" label for attachments in all the mail these guys send and have to presume that it is the real source of the problem.

Now I have asked them to change their Outlook mail settings and according to them they both have - I have no reason to doubt their integrity as the info they need to get to me is generally business orientated and good for their businesses too.

Strange thing is that its only these 2 guys out of possibly 18 that I have asked the direct question of and that are using Outlook that I have the attachment problem with - all the other guys' attachments arrive as regular as clockwork and is quite usable . Anybody else sending mail from other email clients with attachments always arrive in a usable state.

Any ideas much appreciated as I am stumped on this...............

[VJ]

Is the attachement still present in the mail (but you cannot access it), or is it gone?

What filetype is the attachment?
(following some similar issues, we usually send .zip files, for some recepients we even password protect them to avoid similar weird problems)


Jörg

[LvR]

The attachment is "there" but because of the winmail.dat "wrapper" that seems to be the culprit Outlook Express apparently doesn't know what to do with it - ie - the downloaded message's size is such that its obvious the info must be there (typically much larger than a few Kb as with a typical plain text message).

I can send (from OE that is clueless) the same mail (that I cannot use) to somebody else that runs Outlook and they can then see the attachment with no problem.

The type of attachment is irrelevant - any attachment is apparently stuck with that winmail.dat "wrapper" from these 2 people

For the record : Any and all types of attachments from everybody else except from these 2 people always arrive as an attachment and is usable

[Dr Mordrid]

http://www.gpc.edu/~jbenson/resource/winmail.htm

[LvR]

Thanks for that link Dr - I actually saw that too (and quite a few others along the same lines).

I think my situation now is basically this:

I have already done everything in my power to "educate" these guys and to get them to change the settings in their email clients - its quite obvious that the problem originates on their side yet the problem persists even though they say they have both changed their settings - as I said - I have no reason to believe them both trying to BS me because the problem actually affects their businesses too so it would be in their interest to get it sorted pronto.

I have to now either stop talking to these guys (in the interest of sanity) or drive around 1400km to go and personally see to their machines and settings.

Was just wondering if there is a more forceful known recipe to guarantee the non-receiving of the winmail.dat wrappers from anybody. (since the problem seems to be a known one for 5 years plus anyway)

I am aware that there are little apps available to enable me to view the winmail.dat crap, but it seems such a schlep ..................and I would rather do without that atm

[Rakido]

I have already done everything in my power to "educate" these guys and to get them to change the settings in their email clients - its quite obvious that the problem originates on their side yet the problem persists even though they say they have both changed their settings - as I said - I have no reason to believe them both trying to BS me because the problem actually affects their businesses too so it would be in their interest to get it sorted pronto.

Let them make current screenshots of the settings they should change, then you know if they did it right or not ...


R.

[Gurm]

Use LogMeIn on their machine to make the changes yourself. LOL!

Or... use outlook instead of outlook express? It's free...