 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Who Dat Who Said Winmail? Steve Bass |
Has this ever happened to you? You receive an e-mail and there's a winmail.dat attached to it. The attachment can't be viewed, decoded, or converted. Any idea what's going on? Well, it's not a rare event and there's not much you can do about it.
This file contains formatting code that was sent by someone using Microsoft Exchange or Outlook. It usually doesn't contain any useful information other than Rich Text Format (RTF) formatting code that permits two Microsoft Exchange users to send e-mail messages with formatting such as bold and italics. (Oddly enough, there's no relationship between RTF files and RTFM instructions.)
When a user sends an e-mail with this formatting option to someone not on Microsoft Exchange, a winmail.dat file appears as an attachment, but it is useless to the recipient.
When a separate attachment, such as a Word 97 document is also sent from the user on Microsoft Exchange, the attachment and winmail.dat file may be combined into a single winmail.dat file our program cannot do anything with.
Here's the deal: Have the sender turn off the option to send Rich Text Formatted e-mail messages to you.
This can be specified on an individual recipient basis but they may have to consult the product documentation for detailed information.
Current versions of the Microsoft programs by default send plain text e-mail to new recipients instead of the RTF text.
For a very rich FAQ, check the Microsoft Exchange Frequently Asked Questions Web page. It contains answers to questions about Exchange, mostly from folks wrestling with it as their mail client on Win 9.x, where it is also known by the euphonious name of Windows Messaging. Check out:
http://www.angrygraycat.com/goetter/
About the Author
Steve Bass, stevebass@earthlink.net is a Contributing Editor with PC World Magazine, frequently writes for Forbes ASAP, and is the president of the Pasadena IBM Users Group. He often writes with his tongue in his cheek.
Reprinted from the October 2001 issue of PC Update,
the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
