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Cannot Open E-Mail Attachments in Outlook Express?

When you receive an email attachment in Outlook Express, you may be prevented from opening or downloading the file attachment. This behavior occurs if the Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus option is enabled, and the e-mail attachment is determined by Outlook Express to be "unsafe". By default, the Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus option is enabled in Outlook Express 6 SP1. When this virus-protection feature is enabled, Outlook Express uses the Internet Explorer unsafe file list and the Confirm open after download setting in Folder Options to determine if a file is safe. Any e-mail attachment with a file type that is reported as "unsafe" is not downloaded, and access to the attachment is removed. Information About the Unsafe File List in Internet Explorer 6

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Workaround:

Warning: This is a feature of Outlook Express where-in it protects your system from virus attachments. If you're sure that the attachment is safe AND you have a real-time virus scanner running in the background, you may disable the virus protection feature of Outlook Express. Restart Outlook Express. Once saved the required file attachment, re-enable the great feature of Outlook Express. Restart Outlook Express.

  • Start Outlook Express.
  • On the Tools menu, click Options.
  • Click the Security tab, uncheck Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus option under Virus Protection, and then click OK.

More Information

Cannot Open E-Mail Attachments in Outlook Express After You Install SP1