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Don't adjust your mind - it's reality that is malfunctioning

Regain access to blocked atachments in Outlook XP

Affected products

  • Microsoft Outlook XP
  • Microsoft Outlook 2003

Summary

This article describes how Outlook XP can be configured, so that it no longer blocks access to attachments certain file types such as .exe.

Description

Since Outlook 200 SP 2, outlook blocks access to attachment of certain file type such as executables or scripts.
There are two types of blocks: The level one files are completely blocked, so that no access is possible, albeit they are not deleted by Outlook. The level 2 files are blocked in that way, that the user can not open them directly. They must be saved to disk before an access is possible.
Outlook XP can now be configured so that level one filetypes can be transformed to level two files..

SOLUTION

To change the behavior of Outlook, the following steps are necessary:
  1. Open the registry editor.
  2. If you are using Outlook XP, navigate to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Security.Under Outlook 2003, navigate to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security.
  3. Create a new value of type String named Level1Remove.
  4. Open the value and enter a semicolon separated list. For example:
    .exe;.ppt;.url;
    After Outlook has been restarted, the access to the attachments is no longer blocked.

Status

This behavior is by design.

Posted by Henning Krause on Friday, December 31, 2004 2:09 PM, last modified on Friday, December 31, 2004 2:27 PM
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Render HTML emails as plain text in Outlook

Affected products

Summary

This article describes the products listed in the beginning of this article can be configured so that they render HTML emails as plain text.

Description

HTML email are simply complete web pages that are sent by mail. These mails can contain images (so called web bugs) that can be used to track who reads the sent mail. This way, spammer can verify if your email account is an active one, so they can send you more unsolicited mails. On the other hand, HTML emails can contain embedded script code that may be harmful to your computer.
The affected programmed can now be configured so that they render HTML emails as plain text.

Solution

  1. To change the behavior of Outlook, the following steps are necessary:
  2. Open the registry editor.
  3. If you are using Outlook XP, navigate to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Options\Mail.
  4. Create a new value of type DWord called ReadAsPlain.
  5. Set the value to 1.
  6. After Outlook has been restarted, all HTML emails are now rendered as plain text.

Status

This behavior is by design.

Posted by Henning Krause on Friday, December 31, 2004 2:03 PM, last modified on Monday, November 29, 2010 9:31 PM
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