We’ve all heard it about a hundred times already: “Don’t open attachments from unknown senders.” And yet there will always be someone who either has forgotten the last time their system locked up and stopped functioning or they believed their system was protected from viruses. But although administrators are constantly on guard they cannot prevent attachments from being opened.

Attachments which contain viruses are most commonly sent out denoted as executables (“dot exe” extension) and sometimes scripts. The reason is because unsuspecting users will expectedly double click on the attachments to perform some function which they thought would help them. Sometimes hackers will send links to malicious attachments knowing that Outlook does not screen out web site URLs by default.

There are many other types of files with unique filename extensions that can contain viruses. By default, Outlook blocks many types of files based on their extensions because Outlook cannot determine whether files with certain filename extensions contain viruses or not. The benefit is that attachments which do contain viruses are screened out before they are opened by anyone in your end user community. Unfortunately it also means that requested or expected files are also screened out.

Email messages received which contain attachments can produce messages similar to the following:

Outlook blocked access to the following potentially unsafe attachments:

Even though the email message has resulted in a warning about an unsafe attachment it does not mean that the attachment has been deleted from the email. Although your end users cannot save, delete, open or print their attachments there are still ways to safely open a blocked attachment.

One way to open attachments that have been blocked is to request the sender of the email to upload the attachment(s) to an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server. Once the file has been uploaded then the receiver can log on to the server and then download the file to their local system. The originator of the email can also send a URL link – specifically an FTP link that can be copied into a browser field. Both of these methods will allow the end user to bypass Outlook and to successfully retrieve the attachment(s).

Another way for attachments to be delivered is to request that they be sent as zipped up or compressed files. There are several compression software utilities on the market that will take as input a file of bits and bytes and then “compress” the bits and bytes together. One popular compression program is “WinZip”. The software utilities or programs use basic compression algorithms that have been around for some time and are considered to be reliable at not losing data.

There are two steps to this process. The first step is the compression of the file. The second step is the uncompressing of the compressed file. The compression process creates a compressed archive file that has a file name extension that is different from the original file attachment. The newly created compressed file has a file name extension that Outlook does not identify as suspicious. Outlook will not block these compressed files. Administrators can help their end users with the uncompressing of the compressed file as the corresponding uncompressing algorithms will need to be applied.

Administrators can also advise their end users to request from the originator, of the blocked attachment file, to rename the attachment using a different file name extension. The file name extension should be one which Outlook does not perceive as a threat such as a Word document. Word document use the “dot doc” filename extension which Outlook does not automatically screen out as a pernicious file.

Once the file has been safely renamed and resent to the end user then the file can be safely saved on the local system. After the file has been saved then an end user can rename it to its original filename extension. This will allow the file to be opened using the application that it was originally intended for.

End users can safely save and rename their newly renamed files using the following steps:

1. Select the file attachment in the email message.
2. Right click on the attachment and then click Copy.
3. Choose or create a directory to save the attachment.
4. Right click Paste.
5. Right click on the pasted file to bring up the pull-down menu.
6. Select and click Rename.
7. Type in the name of the file using the original file name extension.

Your end user will now be able to double click on the newly renamed file to open it using the appropriate application.

Troubleshooting Blocked Access to Email Attachments

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Email attachments must be sent, received, opened and closed on a daily basis. When a user cannot open an attachment you can be sure that an administrator is going to hear about it. Sometimes there are problems with saving attachments; other times the problems show up when a user attempts to open an attachment.

Some error messages are related to Outlook’s attachment security settings. Other times the error message might be a result of a suspected virus as reported by the user’s anti-virus software.

The most common error message displayed will be something like:

“Cannot create file: file name. Right-click the folder you want to create the file in and click Properties on the shortcut menu to check your permissions for the folder.”

This error message can be an indication of a lack of sufficient permissions of the Temporary Internet Files folder stored on a server. You can fix this problem by configuring Outlook to use a specific folder for temporary internet files.

If Outlook 2000 is being used then you’ll have to make changes to the Registry. As always, before making any edits to the Registry you should always make a backup. That way if any errors are made then you will have a good working backup point that you can restore to.

The change is fairly easy. Just go down to the lower left corner of the screen on most Windows systems and click on the Start button. Then locate the Run program and click again. In the Open text field type in the word “regedit” and hit enter or click OK. This will start the Registry Editor. Next, locate and click on the registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\Security\OutlookSecureTempFolder

Depending on your version of Outlook you may have to look under a different folder instead of the 9.0 subfolder. It might be under 11.0 or 10.0 – you will need to check this. Now if the registry key does not exist on the system then you will have to manually create it.

Your next step is to double-click on OutlookSecureTempFolder. Then in the Value Data field, type in the new directory name of an existing folder such as C:\newtemp\ and then hit the enter key or click OK. Lastly exit the Registry Editor and then restart the system. After restart, verify that you are able to open the attachment.

Another reason for being unable to open attachments can be caused by how temporary files are opened in Outlook. When an attachment is opened Outlook will save a copy of the attachment in a hidden Temporary Internet Files sub-folder. Outlook then appends the same file name with a sequence number. The problem occurs if Outlook tries to open a file more than ninety-nine times. Every time the file is opened the sequence number is incremented but after ninety-nine times it is no longer incremented. And this is where the error happens. The solution is to delete all files within that sub-folder.

The temp folder is created with a name that starts with the letters OLK and is followed by a random number. You will need to search for this folder under the local user’s profile path. If you try to locate this folder using Windows Explorer you will be unable to find it. Even if you have “show hidden folders” turned on it will not help because Windows Explorer prevents the folder from being seen. So what you will have to do is locate this folder manually.

You can start your manual search by clicking on the Start button, then on the Run program and then type in “CMD” in the Open field and hit enter or click OK. This will bring up an MS-DOS command prompt window. From here you’ll need to CD to the “Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files” folder. From inside this folder you can run the command “dir *.” and look for the directory (folder) that starts with OLK. You will need to delete all files in the “Temporary Internet Files” folder.

Now that you know the folder name you can go back into Windows Explorer and navigate to the parent directory and add the newly found folder name such as “OLK(somerandomnumber)”. Then from Windows Explorer you’ll be able to delete all the files inside the newly added directory. If you want to perform a manual delete then cd into that specific folder, OLK(somerandomnumber) and then run the command “del *.*” to delete all the files inside. Be absolutely certain you are in the OLK(somerandomnumber) folder before performing any deletes.

After deleting the files you can then restart Microsoft Outlook. After Outlook has restarted verify that you are able to open your attachment.

Outlook Cannot Create or Open Attachment

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Sending, receiving and opening up documents as email attachments is as common as opening and closing doors on a daily basis. But sometimes documents do not open up and can cause much frustration to someone who is expecting an important document so that they can proceed with their business of the day.

If you are having problems opening file attachments then you might be in need of a converter or viewer. Microsoft has many converters and viewers to help you with opening up a variety of documents attached to emails.

There are even Microsoft-supplied import/export converters which support the ability to open non-Outlook mail. Converters allow you to open up documents created by other programs and to save Outlook files in other file formats.  Converters exist to allow you to open up such files from common time and information management programs.

Microsoft has a Network Conversion Utility that allows you to search Outlook email items for email addresses in the MSNINET (Microsoft Network-only) format. The utility can convert these addresses into an Internet domain name format which can speed up delivery.

If you are  having a problem opening a Microsoft Office file or importing information from another product into your Office program then you may be in need of a converter or  viewer.

The most obvious solution is that you do not have Microsoft Office. Another possibility is that you have a version incompatibility issue – your version of Office is older than the version used to create the document you received. Or vice-versa. Maybe the recipent of the document you sent has an older version of software than that which you used to create the document. Versioning problems and incompatibility issues are very commonplace in the world of software.

A quick solution is to ask the sender what version of software they were using when they created your email attachment. Then you can determine if they need to upgrade their software or if they have a copy of a version compatible with the software you use to open their email attachment.

If the sender or the receiver do not have compatible versions they can go to a Microsoft site that has online file converters and viewers available.

Many file converters and viewers are available at the Office section of the Microsoft site:  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/HA010449811033.aspx

Such viewers and converters are available for the following products:

• Access viewers – Access 97, Access 2000 and Access 2002
• Excel converters and viewers – Excel 2003 viewers, Excel 2000 converters and viewers and Excel 97 converters
• Outlook converters and viewers – Outlook 2000 converters and Outlook 97/98 converters
• Word converters and viewers – Word 2003 viewers, Word 2002 converters, Word 2000 viewers and converters, and Word 97 viewers and converters
• PowerPoint converters and viewers – PowerPoint 2003 viewers, PowerPoint 2002 viewers, PowerPoint 2000 converters and viewers, and PowerPoint 97 converters and viewers
• Microsoft Project converters – Microsoft Project 2000 converters
• Visio converters and viewers – Visio 2003 viewers, Visio 2002 viewers and Visio 2000 converters
• Converters and viewers for Macintosh users – Mactopia downloads

After you have found the correct converter or viewer for the file you are having trouble with you can then download it.

Let’s say you need an Outlook 97/98 converter. Scroll down the page until you find the link “Outlook 97/98 converters”. This will bring up a web page with converters available for download which will allow you to open documents created by other programs and to save Outlook 97/98 files in other file formats. The converters listed include:

• Outlook 97 Converter: Import/Export Converters
• Outlook 97 Converter: Import/Export Converters for NT
• Outlook Microsoft Network E-Mail Conversion Utility

Below each link there is a description of the converter’s functionality. You can find the system requirements, instructions and related resources for each converter on their respective web pages once you have clicked on the link to the converter you need.

After downloading and installing the Microsoft file converter/viewer you will then be able to open the file that you received or are trying to convert.
Converters for Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) devices are not available from Microsoft but may be available from other companies. You should check with your appropriate vendor for additional converters or viewers for your respective devices.

Converters for Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) devices are not available from Microsoft but may be available from other companies. You should check with your appropriate vendor for additional converters or viewers for your respective devices.

A Guide to Converters and Viewers for Email Attachments

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