[bksvol-discuss] OT winmail.dat
- From: "Gerald Hovas" <geraldhovas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 23:36:57 -0500
OK, here is a description of the problem. I got it out of the first result
from a Google search for winmail.dat. If you want more information, you can
go to the following site, http://www.gpc.edu/~jbenson/resource/winmail.htm
or try one of the approximately 22,400 other results that Google retrieves.
Gerald
Dealing with winmail.dat and unreadable email attachments
The Problem
Email users sometimes find that they receive email messages with a strange
file attached, called winmail.dat. When they attempt to open this file,
either
it can't be opened at all, or it contains "garbage" data.
The situation causing this is that people are using several different email
client programs
to receive, read, and send email. The most commonly used email client
programs at GPC seem to be Microsoft Outlook and Netscape (specifically the
Messenger
component), with a small minority of techno-geeks using Eudora.
Unfortunately, Outlook does not "play nice" with the other email programs
all the time.
This causes problems, not for the sender of the email, but the recipient,
particularly when actual files are attached to messages.
Outlook97/2000
Outlook is a rather powerful email client program with a number of features
that look very attractive. Most notably, Outlook allows users to send email
in a variety of formats:
List of 4 items
? as plain vanilla text with no formatting
? in Rich Text Format, which allows for a limited amount of formatting, such
as boldface/italic/underlined text or different fonts
? formatted with the HTML formatting language so that it appears (sort of)
like a web page
? formatted as a Microsoft Word document.
list end
It's these formatting options that cause the problems.
When an Outlook user composes and sends a message using either Rich Text
Format or HTML Format, Outlook automagically generates a file, winmail.dat,
and
attaches it to the end of the message. winmail.dat contains formatting
information, in a human-unreadable form, that Outlook will use on the
receiving
end to display this email message correctly. Unfortunately, Outlook is the
ONLY email client program that can use this information! Netscape Messenger,
Eudora,and other email client programs don't understand this information.
The Solutions
If you are receiving these winmail.dat files
I assume at this point that you are not using Microsoft Outlook as your
email client program, since this wouldn't be a problem if you were using it.
One solution to the problem is to visit
http://www.biblet.com
and download the WMDecode program found there (look about halfway down the
page). This will at least allow you to decode the winmail.dat files and
extract
any useful attachments from them.
Other than this, there's not much you can do on your end to fix the problem,
since it's not your email program generating the problem. If you just don't
want to deal with the problem, the other approach is to reply to the
individual who sent you the offending email and ask that they re-send the
message,
with the attached files, as a plain text message, not in Rich Text Format or
HTML. If they don't know how to do this, you can, of course, refer them to
this document!
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Tony Baechler
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 11:10 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Shrinking step 1
Hi. This is an obnoxious feature of MS Outlook. I have seen this from
other Outlook users also. I think it is some sort of signature file but
I'm not sure. I think it's harmless enough though.
At 11:48 AM 4/26/2005 -0500, you wrote:
>Marissa, your posting contains a file attached called winmail.dat. May
>it be a virus?
Tony Baechler
Maintainer, goldenaudio.net (TM) online archives
http://goldenaudio.net/
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