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Summary: Outlook tries to protect you from opening certain types of attachments, even if you know they're safe. A registry change puts you back in control. How do I force Outlook to open "potentially unsafe attachments" that I know are ok? As discussed in an earlier article Outlook tries to protect you from viruses by blocking access to files which have certain extensions like ".exe" for example, because they could carry a virus and infect your machine. •
Microsoft's official recommendation is that you have whomever sent you the file rename or zip it and send it again. And to be honest that's probably still the safest approach overall. However that's just not an option sometimes. Fortunately there is a registry setting you can add that will instruct outlook to treat extensions that you specify as safe. Before we go mucking about in the registry I'll caution you that the registry is a critical component of the operating system, and it's possible to render your system totally useless if you make the wrong changes. Microsoft provides instructions for backing up the registry here. That having been said, the steps I'm about to outline are relatively simple if you follow along carefully.
Remember: once you have enabled access to a particular file type, you are assuming responsibility for making sure that an attachment is safe before you open or run it. Related:
• Recent Comments
I find it interesting that Microsoft considers Access databases among its "unsafe" attachments, but not Word documents. Did they really feel that Word is less likely than Access to have a malicious program embedded? Or was it just that they couldn't possibly block the attachment of Word documents without blackening their own eye and driving everyone away from Outlook? Therefore, (IMHO) attachment blocking isn't a true protection mechanism, and is therefore worthless. Users who think they are protected by this useless POC have a false sense of security that does them more harm than good. Leave protection to an anti-virus program, and don't irritate me with half-baked "protection" mechanisms that get in my way more than they help me. . Posted by: James at July 21, 2005 08:01 PMActually our installation of Outlook/Exchange 2003 does a tremendously successful job of blocking perfectly safe Word documents. Added entertainment value is added by the fact that going through all of this level 1 - level 2 nonsense has ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT whatever. Zipping also has no effect; but resaving the same document as an RTF? That works. Kudos to Microsoft for blowing another hole in my ongoing dream of software rationalization. Posted by: Max J at August 31, 2005 05:41 AMThere's alot of confusion re the level 1 and 2 remove stuff. For a definiatve understanding of the issue see: http://www.infocellar.com/msoffice/outlook-attachments.htm Posted by: James at February 6, 2006 06:37 PMHi all, can someone perhaps help me out here. I am trying to open an attached RTF file in outlook. The system gives the following error message when I try to do so: "This object was created in Outlook. This application is not available to open this object. Make sure the application is properly installed and that it is not been deleted, moved, or renamed." Now the strange thing is that the other people that receive the same email, have no problem in opening the attached RTF file. They have the same version of Outlook. If someone could email me the solution (info@tunnelvision-web.com) this would really be appreciated!!!!! Thanks all! Hi, I'm trying to grant the files permissions for all the outlook's users at a time, instead of doing one by one on the hkey current user, because I have a terminal server running severals Outlooks. Export all messages to Outlook Express. Posted by: Harun at January 18, 2007 12:59 AMThanks - Just saved me losing business to the tune of $600! Posted by: Simon at July 3, 2007 01:29 PMThank you for this good informaition , but still the problem exist , i can not oopen either url or xnk allatments in outlook 2007 . Posted by: SUAD at February 5, 2008 01:51 AMThanks for this, this will help us alot supporting our users. Thanks from dmwworld.com Posted by: Dave Cash at July 28, 2008 06:01 AMThis came in handy today. Trying to get at a SSL certificate file in a email attachment. I will link back to your site on my blog at http://www.qvlweb.blogspot.com Post a comment on "How do I force Outlook to open "potentially unsafe attachments" that I know are ok?":
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