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Why can't I open attachments in Hotmail?

Question:

I am unable to open my Hotmail attachments. I am able to open attachments on
other email services such as Yahoo, but not Hotmail. Why? (I hope your answer
doesn’t require me to open an attachment!)

This article has been updated. See:
“Windows Live Hotmail has blocked some attachments …” – how do I get around that?

Nope, no attachment’s required.

The “why” is easy. Hotmail is attempting to protect you.

What to do about it, is less obvious, and a lot more cumbersome.

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As we all know by now, viruses and other forms of malware are frequently
transmitted by email in the form of attachments.

The problem is that no matter how many times people are told “don’t open
attachments from untrusted sources” they do so anyway. Or they trust sources
that they shouldn’t.

It’s what some people call the Dancing Bunnies problem; send people an email that promises them
dancing bunnies if they open the attachment, and darn it, a bunch of them are
going to open that attachment no matter where it came from.

“Note the magical word permanently – you can’t open that
attachment in Hotmail. Period.”

So, Hotmail “solves” this problem by disallowing many types of attachments.
If you get an email with attachments that Hotmail does not support, you get
this message:

Hotmail has permanently blocked the following potentially unsafe
attachment(s)

Note the magical word permanently – you can’t open that
attachment in Hotmail. Period.

And if you follow through and click on the “More Info…” link next to that
warning message, Hotmail’s online help is quite explicit:

Hotmail doesn’t support all file types. If you send an attachment
that Hotmail doesn’t support, the e-mail recipient wont be able to download or
open the attachment.

I’m assuming that “send” should be “receive” because you most definitely can
send attachments from a Hotmail account, no matter what type, as we’ll
see in a second.

There are two solutions, neither of them pretty:

  1. Have the sender send the attachment again, with a different name, or as a
    compressed file. “.zip” files are fine. “.exe” files are not. So if your sender
    creates a .zip archive of the .exe file that he’s trying to send you,
    that you can save, and then decompress back into it’s original form
    and name.

    Heck, just renaming the file is enough. Have the sender rename the
    .exe file into a .txt file and send that as an attachment. You’ll be able to
    download it, and then rename it back to a .exe.

  2. Forward the attachment to a non-Hotmail account. Hotmail doesn’t mention
    this approach, but sure enough, even though you can’t open the
    unsupported attachments, you can forward them to a different account on a
    different service. If that service allows you to open the attachment, you’ve
    got it.

Hotmail’s goal here is, obviously, to make it difficult to open malware in
attachments by accident. You have to take steps of some sort; you have to think
about it.

If you go through those steps, and you still get infected? Well, it
was your own doing.

Do this

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108 comments on “Why can't I open attachments in Hotmail?”

  1. I can’t open attachments from Hotmail that other people with Hotmail accounts are able to open from their Hotmail accounts. Why is that? (I used to be able to, but now I can’t. I am currently using 22% of my 1GB storage space – I don’t know if that’s relevant. Additionally, I can’t re-order my Inbox messages by Sender, Subject, Date, etc. by clicking on the heading name, as other people can. I don’t know if the cause of this is related to the attachment problem.) Thank you very much for any advice you can give me.

    Reply
  2. I am having a problem with opening attachments but it is not with hotmail. They will not open on my laptop but I can get all of the attachments on my desktop. Seems there is some configuration issue but my wife and I haven’t got a clue. Please help !!! Thanks !!!!

    Reply
  3. hey, i use firefox (1.0.7 until 5 minutes ago and now 1.5.0.6) and i can’t open attachments in my hotmail account. the problem is that when i click on “download attachment”, the page loads for a very short time, then says it’s done, but nothing happens. i’ve tried old and new emails, and i updated firefox, but it’s still the same. and it works fine in netscape. what can i do?

    Reply
  4. I lost my ability to open attachments right after an emachines restore for an audio driver was complete. When their techs fix a problem on a home based PC, do they change security enough to mess up the email? I did give them control over my computer to get the driver back on my computer.

    Reply
  5. I am having the same problem with hotmail. The download box opens but there is no open button. I click to save it and it always says file cannot download or service is unavalable. try later.I tried with Word documents and PDF documents atachments. same problem. The same hotmail account viewed in another computer is able to open. What can I do to remove this security feature?.

    Reply
  6. I get retail and wholesale catalogs… have for years, all of a sudden I can’t get the different departments of the site to open, any site that emails me. thank you for your help. phil

    Reply
  7. Have the same problem. Visited the MSN Support page and discovered the Goggle tool bar and Goggle Web Accelerator may have something to do with it. I’m going to disable web accelerator when I get home and see if it clears up the problem.

    Reply
  8. It is advisable to use other email services for attachments rather then sticking with MSN Hotmail. It has happened that you unable to open attachments at the time of emergency. Swith to GMAIL or something else.

    BEWARE : DO NOT ASK FOR ATTACHMENTS IN YOUR MSN HOTMAIL ACCOUNT AS YOU ARE NOT GOING TO DOWNLOAD THE SAME

    Reply
  9. Hello… When I open my hotmail, I can see my e-mails. I havea few e-mails in which I had stored some picture files. The e-mail size shows as 11MB, 13MB, 5 MB and so on. However, when I open the email, the content is blank. Everything is blank. I can not see my attachments. What’s happening? Please help.

    Reply
  10. When I try to open an attachment in hotmail it gets to the point where I click on “Download file”, but when I do, it opens up another hotmail window showing me how many messages I have. No matter how many times I click, a new window keeps popping up. (The files are .jpg or other supported files) Help!

    Reply
  11. Sign out of hotmail, select save email address only and sign in. This bug only happens when you sign in on save/remembermy email and password

    Reply
  12. I can not open any attachment in hotmail. But this only happens with my notebook, if I user another computer I have no problems. I checked the firewall, activeX, cookies, etc. etc. and nothing, just nothing. Anybody with a brilliant idea what the problem could be?

    Reply
  13. I also have a problem all of a sudden downloading attachments from my hotmail emails.I read the article, but mine is all attachements.And only on my laptop. If I use a public computer at an internet cafe or the like – no problems. When I click on “download file”, I get the download status popup box but it defaults to download to \login.srf Then when i click download I get an error popup box saying the destinationserver is unavailable.So if i change the destination folder to one of my choice on me harddrive, i get an error message to say the file can’t be opened, it be used by another program.
    Any ideas? It’s driving me crazy!!!!

    Reply
  14. I have the same problem, I tried a different browser and the download function works fine, I tested with Netscape and Firefox, both successful. I haven’t been able to figure out what setting in IE to change yet, but I started having the problem after installing some Microsoft updates.

    Reply
  15. I’m trying to send an attachment(one page),no dice;all I get is a notitication of failure. I do not open attachments,but I like to send my resume online. Give me a break!

    Reply
  16. since 2 days cannot open hotmail page. it says ready but the page is blank. Also cannot browse in yahoo or google. I can see in my messenger which is working that I have emails.
    On my sons side in the computer everything does work normal.

    Reply
  17. I am having the same problem Roshan is having. I have old emails with pictures, when I open them I get only a blank page. Where did the pictures go?. How do I get them back?. The whole point of having lost of storage is to be able to keep emails for a long time. And MSN didn’t even warn us about this…

    Reply
  18. I just realized that emails with attachments but no message in the body of the email show as blank emails. Again, does it mean we lost those pictures forever?

    Reply
  19. Hello… When I open my hotmail, I can see my e-mails. I havea few e-mails in which I had stored some picture files. The e-mail size shows as 11MB, 13MB, 5 MB and so on. However, when I open the email, the content is blank. Everything is blank. I can not see my attachments. Can you please help me with this??

    Reply
  20. I can save an attachment in hotmail but cannot open it, I can do this on other computers but not mine. Can also do this in Yahoo, but not hotmail. any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks

    Reply
  21. I cant open the attachment file in my hotmail account,even i cant open attachment which i opened befor many times and still in my account.i forward the same e mail whith the attachment to another account and got it open.the e mailes from many user and secure.
    thanks

    Reply
  22. Sorry, you are wrong about this one, Leo. Last night my husband was able to open his attachments. A few hours later, he was not able to open the same attachments. Later yet, he was able to again. I suspect it is an issue with the server being “busy” … but then I could be wrong.

    Reply
  23. Leo, you’re deadly wrong about attachments that can’t open.It has to be a solution from Hotmail or Microsoft. PERIOD.

    Reply
  24. I had the same problem and I fix it by doing this.

    Tools, internet explorer, advanced, then Click reset.
    Now I can open my attachments in explorer

    Reply
  25. Forwarding the email with attachment to another email site (Yahoo) to open it doesn’t work. Maybe junking IE-6 will??? Anybody have this problem with Netscape?

    Reply
  26. For three days now I can’t see my e-mails. I’ll sign in and it won’t pop up… everything seems to be connected.. help..

    Reply
  27. I have only lost the ability to open up my hotmail attachments a few days ago ,up till then no problem.Have I done accidently chaged something or has hotmail changed something.

    Reply
  28. Mine is a strange one. First, I never open emails if I don’t know the sender.
    Two weeks ago, I found that when I sent a ‘.doc’ attachment, it couldn’t be opened, (even tried sending one to myself!), but photo files and pdf files could be opened without any problem. I had no viruses in my computer, and then discovered this was happening when sending from any computer, work, friend, internet cafe etc.
    I suddenly discovered that it was my email account that was causing the problem, and it seems to be ok now I’ve opened a different account. Can a virus infect an email address? or has somebody hacked it?
    I’m still baffled (and stressed out !!), but at least seem to have the problem behind me, now.

    Reply
  29. There seems to be a new problem here, related more to Hotmail’s virus software than anything else. It seems the current virus software update has screwed up the ability to scan .zip files, and the virus scan doesn’t know how to even read them. It just pops up an error saying “File contains too many embedded zip files” and won’t let you touch it. You can’t forward it, can’t download it, and it just sits. They’ve changed things enough that you can no longer forward attachments that the virus scan hasn’t already given the okay on. I’ve gotten this on several occasions now, all very frustrating, and forcing me to use another email service just for attachments.

    I’ve sent a complaint to MS about it, hopefully someone will fix it quick. It only started happening in the past couple of weeks or so I think.

    Reply
  30. In a related issue, I can’t type in any message into outgoing Hotmail e-mails. If I try to forward a message, thast message won’t go either. I send an e-mail, but the content is lost. How come? What can i do about it?

    Reply
  31. I contacted Norton live chat because I couldn’t open email attachments in Hotmail. Their advice was as follows: IE/Tools/Options/Programs/Manage Add-ons/disable Norton Confidential. Open Norton and go to Phishing Protection and click ignore. BINGO everything works. Hope this helps someone.

    Reply
  32. I receive e mails with a photo attachment. When I open the e mail, the picture is a “gray block'”. t is not with all e mails. I can open most of the pictures. Is there a way I can reprogram HotMail to open all photos? thank you

    Reply
  33. So, is hotmail now acting as big brother, deciding what I can and cannot open in my hotmail? I cannot send myself pictures from my own cell phone, even though it is on my “safe” list? Thank you hotmail, you have forced me to set up another email account under another provider. I will not use hotmail again. This is BS. How dare YOU decide what I can and cannot open.

    Reply
  34. Same question as Manny Sancho. Some picture attachments to me email come blocked in gray. they are not attached as JPEG. I cannot view these pictures. HELP

    Reply
  35. I am able to open Hotmail attachments with Firefox that do not open with IE6, so I keep both browsers on my deskttop.I also notice that if I do not select the printer (even though I am not printing)to which my laptop is connected at the time, an attachment will not always open.

    Reply
  36. In the last few months, I have had difficulty opening emails with attachments. When I open an email that has an attachment, hotmail just freezes up and I can’t do anything. I have to ctrl, alt, delete to get to task manager and end task on the internet. These are .doc files that should be able to open, but it locks up my whole hotmail. I can’t even navigate back to my inbox. I suspect some issue between hotmail and vista but can find no known problems. My husband has been experiencing the same problems on his computer with his hotmail. Any ideas? the article didn’t help.

    Reply
  37. yeah..i experienced the same problems as Angie. The whole internet explorer just hangs whenever i try to open or save a normal attached file from hotmail that could usually be received before this. And also, the attached file only cant seem to be opened in my laptop but when i use another computer to access to it, there wasnt any problems at all. How come?? Pls help!!

    One of my suspicions in cases like this is that your firewall, or your security software, is somehow interfering with the web browser. I’ve seen that kind of behavior, and it’s something that does differ from machine to machine. It’s worth looking at your security software’s configuration.

    -Leo

    Reply
  38. hi,I cant veiw attachments either, i uploaded short vids from my mobile sent as email (hotmail)to myself as a test, am getting message it cannot open 3g file? iv joind a site to try and convert it, but im still getting the same error message
    does this mean we cant attach anything that was uploaded from a mobile, please help

    Reply
  39. I am unable to open any attachments that come attached to a Hotmail e-mail. I can open them with another provider however. The majority of these e-mails have been sent from, what I consider to be, very secure sources. I took Jules’ advice but it did not work. I had someone send me an e-mail from Microsoft Community Notification says they have the answer but when I attempted to open the link all that happened was a blank window appeared with Done indicated in the lower left. It appears that I cannot open anything attached to the e-mail, only the e-mail itself. Any suggestions on what I can do?

    Reply
  40. Leo,

    My problem is as follows:

    Someone sent me a Zip file, but I can’t open it. I get a message that there are too many files inside the Zip file, so the file can’t be scanned.

    Sending the file to another adress is no option either, because Hotmail just ignores the file altogether. What am I to do???

    Reply
  41. Since a few weeks I have been unable to open attached files, even simple textfiles, sent to my hotmail adress. I tried sending my incoming mails to to myself on another hotmailadress and used the same computer to open the mail. Then I could open the attached files. So the problem must in some way be in settings (unknown to me) for my usual hotmail address. Which??
    Ulf

    Reply
  42. I can’t open attachments either. The Getting File Information Window pops up when I try to download a file. It never gets out of that loop and I can’t open any files in Yahoo or Hotmail. I am sure it has something to do with my norton protection center. Right? I don’t know what to click to allow me to open attachments or save attachments to my computer.

    Reply
  43. I can not open my doc files in hotmail. When I try to donwload them in IE on my new laptop, The download window stays on the screen without any changes. Can you help me out

    Reply
  44. I cannot open my attachments in full from my emails. It says its downloading but it doesn’t do anything . I wait for hours for the download but its a waste of time. Any solutions?
    please

    Reply
  45. alot of people are experiencing a new problem which has started in the past 2-4 weeks where by u cannot open any .doc or pdf attachments in hotmail. The problem seems to be caused by Norton Antivirus, try diabling something called ‘Norton Confidential Browser Helper Object’, if not the fix is to get your friends to zip any attachments or access hotmail using a alternative browser to IE like firefox or opera this will fix it until norton or hotmail releases a fix but i hear norton gave up on the fix after not being able to fix it!

    Reply
  46. I cannot open my attachments in full from my emails. It says its downloading but it doesn’t do anything . I wait for hours for the download but its a waste of time. Any solutions?
    please.
    As weel got problem with openng aMSN, every taime apere message;

    couldn’t read file”config.tcl” ; no such file or directory while executing
    “source config.tcl”
    (“uplevel” body line 28
    invoked from within
    “uplevel\0

    amsncore.tlc is already loaded buth we’ll re- source it here in case we manually do reload_ files
    source amsncoretcl
    source audio.tc…”
    (procedure ” reload_files”line2)

    So I try to dowload new Msn but im just waste time nothing happend..
    #
    please help me

    Reply
  47. time to switch to yahoo! that is the dumbest thing ive ever heared……………..they shouldnt be allowed to control what i can and cant have! even if it is a virus………But considering all i want are my picture messages sent from my phone its just damn ridiculous

    Reply
  48. When i try to open my hotmail, i sit and wait for it to open but it never does. I”Ve had problems with this aaccount for the last month.
    What is the problem with hotmail these days?

    Reply
  49. Using MSN Hotmail. When I get an attachement and double click on the it, I only get the options to Save or Cancel. The Open option isnt there. What can I do?
    Thanks, Brad

    Reply
  50. In the last couple of weeks I cannot open emails with an attachment. Its not just the attachment but also the email itself. I even cannot see the text in the email that has an attachment.

    I can open email Without an attachment.

    Whenever I click on email with attachment it says “Loading” at lower left corner of the window and nothing happens.

    I cannot forward the email to another email account because that Forward button appears only after email it opened.

    I don’t understand what hotmail people are trying to do here.

    Reply
  51. Same as other comments above, I can’t open attachements on hot mail, the screen appears to be opening the email but nothing happens for hours. This began slowly a few weeks ago, I was able to open some attachements but not others, some I had to save and then open but now nothing gets in.

    Reply
  52. Hi Leo,i HAVE TWO HOTMAILS, ONE IN INT EXP AND THE OTHER IN FIREFOX…FIRE FOX IS FINE MOST OF THE TIME FOR ATTACHMENTS, BUT INT EXP IS ADISASTER..NOT ONLY DOES IT NOT OPEN ATTACHMENTS, BUT INT EXPLORER CRASHES…ALSO FOR DOWNLOADING OTHER STUFF, THE SAME THING…i NOTICED IT HAPPNED SINSE I UPGRADED TO EXP 8, THANKS PD

    Reply
  53. Having problem opening attachment with hotmail. after opening 3 or four orsometimes two it hangs up and does nothing. To open the attachment I have to get out of hotmail and log-in again to be able to open two or three more. It does not have anything with the software type. There is something wrong with the Vista because I did not have any problem opening attachments before in EXP.

    Reply
  54. when i try to open my mails it shows error on page and i am not able to open my emails and attachments on my pc . help me to open my emails

    Reply
  55. I cannot open attachements from either mail service using this machine. I get open or save. Open doesn’t open and save seems to save it but goes nowhere. It works fine on my other machine.
    this started a week ago. Some message were opening before this problem

    Reply
  56. MSN e-mail gives me a comand failed message when i try to open an attachment. Attachment says
    Scanned safe. Started about 2-3 weeks ago. Try and open it with msn hotmail works 100% of the time.Is this a msn or opsys bug. I run Vista.

    Reply
  57. Leo, Be honest and say “I dont know” instead of telling us stories how hotmail will allow some attachments and will not allow others.
    You seem not to be listening, so lets try again.
    I cannot open any attachment in my hotmail, neither can I open any attachment sent to me over yahoo mail period. This started month or two ago. The common denominator here is IE7. It could also be my Norton NIS 2008 Internet security even though cannot find anything wrong.
    There are thousands of people out there experiencing same thing and I have yet to hear or find someone that will tell us how to fix this. Alex

    Actually the article was pretty clear, but since it’s what you want to hear: I don’t know.

    – Leo
    07-Apr-2009
    Reply
  58. I am having the same problem as William Powell. This problem started a few days ago. Reloaded MSN and it still does it. I have MCafee virus protection. My attachments safe scan.

    Reply
  59. I had a similar problem. I could open attachments from yahoo on another PC but not on mine. If you have anti virus on your PC it could be blocking it. In your anti virus Check the Virus Controls; then Protection Against Viruses; click on Settings and uncheck the box that said “Threats in Web mail attachments”. (Remember the name and path will be different in each application so you may need to find these settings in your application as this instruction was for Trend).

    I found this solution at http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-33677-can-t-download-attachments-on-my-yahoo-email

    Hope this helps

    Reply
  60. My virus protection wasn’t the problem. I did some research and found that by upgrading my IE session to the new 8 program it was causing significant problems with MSN mail, etc. I removed the upgrade and now my system is working properly again. You need to go into Control panel, uninstall a program and then click on the upper left hand corner ‘View installed updates’. Find IE8 and remove it. On Vista it will not show up in the unistall because it is loaded as an update. Just glad my mail is back to working again.

    Reply
  61. I cant open my emails. It keeps saying Done. Please help me. I have so many emails to open and I cant get through. Do I need to change my email address. Please let me know what to do.
    Thanks

    Reply
  62. I recently posted a comment about MSN e-mail not being able to open attachments. I finally got it fixed. MSN technician after three hours dicovered that my MSN Icon had a bug.Everything else in MSN worked perfectly. Even after a new download of msn it failed. A new persistent technician found that some sort of dll had to be deleted. She deleted it It now works fine. I don’t know how or why it broke but it is fixed. I hope this will help Elizabeth Meci.Go to start menu find Icon that says MSN Internet. Open MSN with that Icon.
    I did have another backup Icon that one did not work either. “MSN INTERNET” ICON WORKED”
    William Powell

    Reply
  63. When I try to open attachements, regardless of format, nothing happens. When I right-click on it and try to save, a message pops up and says ‘Internet explorer cannot download, No such interface supported’. I don’t know what that means. Can you please help?

    Reply
  64. in my PC it takes ages to open an email attachment regardless of size. its a Vista pc with all latest configuration with internet security installed. any help?.

    Reply
  65. Have received to 2 attachments on E’Mail from what I am sure is from a good source.
    I click on to Download and the box appears asking me to either open , save or cancel, yesterday I clicked onto open and the movement of files was indicated by images of them going from globe to file.
    however where it lists the estimated time and download to, transfer rate. nothing is shown.
    The attachments are 54.8kb and 22.5kb respectively
    Am now trying by clicking on save and see what happens.
    Last night when I first tryed to down load it was 8.0pm I started and it was still going at 9.00am this morning so I cancelled.
    Hope you can help me.
    John

    Reply
  66. I have EXACTLY the same problem as John Reynolds. Can anyone help us with this please? It is so frustrating and in my case, I urgently need to open documents (Excel documents and .pdf files) sent to me from overseas.

    Thanks. Marian.

    Reply
  67. Not at all pleased with the latest hotmail features which prohibit opening attachments. Other service can do it. Hotmail used to allow it until a few months ago. Maybe I should subscribe to yahoo or gmail … what seems to be the problem? and don’t tell me about the virus protection thing. I know all about that and here ae ways to screen for safe use. Feedback requested. Thanks.

    Reply
  68. I’m new to this format of Hotmail and I don’t know how to oppen any attachment. In MSN Premium I just right clicked on the attachment and selected open. But that doesn’t work for hotmail. OI don’t get the option to open .How do I get it?

    Reply
  69. new IE 8 does not let you open attachments in MSN hotmail. Talked to MSN about it and their solution was to have me uninstall Internet Explorer 8 and then everything worked fine. They are aware of the problem and attempting to correct it, eventually.

    Reply
  70. I also have IE 8, but I cannot uninstall it. In the Add/Remove programs the remove button does not appear as it does for all other programs. IE 8 is evil. I cannot open any attachments in Hotmail in the meantime.

    Reply
  71. Uninstalling IE8 Doesn’t work I’ve tried it. Hotmail sucks!! I have 3 computers all have hotmail and 2 work fine and my laptop doesn’t. Anyone that sends emails with pictures or attachments I can’t see them. I just don’t understand how 2 can work and one doesn’t. I am so frustrated!!

    Reply
  72. I also used to be able to open any kind of attachment with Hotmail, now I can’t open any kind of attachment no matter what. I HATE THIS NEW VERSION OF HOTMAIL!! I see no point in keeping a Hotmail account if I am constantly having to forward emails to Yahoo or Outlook Express, which have no problems with opening them!

    Reply
  73. I’m wondering if it isn’t an error in the updated version of hotmail. I have never opening an unknown attachment. Now I cannot open ANY attachments or even photos that I have sent to my hotmail account from my work account. I can’t even open old attachments that I have saved in folders.

    Reply
  74. This is GARBAGE!! I TOO NEED my attachments opened! It is NONE of MSN’s business if I happen to download a virus, malware, or other crap. I NEED MY DOWNLOADS! WHO ARE YOU?!?!?! GOD?!?!?!
    This is a long established email address and I do not want to change it now. What a confusing mess that would be.
    Ok, so you think your are God. You are NOT! Change the settings so I can get my email. I do not want IE8 for anything. It was foisted upon us due to no bad acts of us users.
    JW

    Hopefully you’re aware that I am not Hotmail, this site is not related to Microsoft or Hotmail, and it’s very unlikely that anyone in a position to address your concerns reads this. You might consider visiting the Windows Live Support Forums. More here: How do I contact Windows Live Hotmail customer service?

    Leo
    12-Sep-2009

    Reply
  75. I have upgraded my Trend micro to Trend micro Pro. Still can’t open attachments. I have hunted down and killed all the dancing bunnies and still…… No attachments. I use Vista and still not impressed. Can we get some help here?

    Reply
  76. I had this exact problem suddenly happen on my PC and my laptop. Drove me CRAZY! However, I fixed it, and not by accident. I had just received an update from Trend Micro Internet Security (TMIS). The Hotmail team advised me to turn features off and observe if any change happened. One of the features DEFINITELY changed the result, and I reversed this several times to prove it wasn’t an anomaly. TMIS had this new thing called “Protection Against Web Threats”, which is in addition to virus protection and firewall. If I have this turned on, I can’t open Hotmail attachements. It’s not Hotmail’s fault. If you have TMIS, try this change.

    Reply
  77. THANK YOU LARRY HENRICKSON!! The TMIS solution, to turn off the “Protection Against Web Threats” feature, instantly solved my problem with Hotmail attachments. I can now view attachments without any problems.

    Reply
  78. you can open it with windows live essentials, but for some reason hotmail still won’t open attachments. I don’t recommend live essentials, it slows down your computer, bigtime. Please advise

    Reply
  79. Hello everyone,

    I have recently the same problem. I couldn’t dowbload any attachament or see any picture. I have just fixed the problem by updating my Java version. Now everything goes back to normal.

    Reply
  80. Hi I really need some help!I can’t open any attachements from my windows live account, but when i forwarded it to my friend they could open it on theirs.Anyone know how I can fix this problem?It keeps saying file corrupt or encrypted or something when it comes up in adobe..Ive tried several things including deleting adobe..pls help..

    Reply
  81. When i try and open an attachment it just keeps saying..’Internet Explorer cannot download, no such interface supported’ what does this mean?

    Reply
  82. Two questions! Why is my e-mail appearing in hotmail instead of regular inbox! Also, why is MSN-hotmail blocking me from seeing the e-mail from my friend Christal from Germany? My computer crushed a month ago, and since I got back on line, I have been having a lot of difficulties opening my mail.Please, see if that can be corrected.

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  83. As of yesterday, I was able to open attachments from a certain friend. As of today, I can’t. The material is of the same nature. So…why can’t I open it now?

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  84. Same as Ernestine Vallee, we cant open the file that my family sent me, which is of the same nature, so why cant it be opened. It does waste so much of our time as we dont really understand computers.

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  85. unable to download or save from my hotmail but it looks like it is, but when I go to open it’s not their” the download box comes up and everything”

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  86. Same as Vallee. I was able to open attachments until yesterday, Today, 19-apr-2010 hotmail decided that I can only ‘save’ or ‘cancel’ but not ‘open’ the attachments, no matter what extension or nature (pps, .doc, .xls, .pdf, etc) all the same ANy clue? Thank you!

    Reply
  87. when I try to open attachments(pictures) in my hotmail, it says, internet is shutting down and I have too many add-ons. I have vista. What do I do?

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  88. Dear ALL: here the solution for the issue with the attachments that cannot be automatically opened in Hotmail. Go to IE Tools – Internet Options – Advance, scroll down to Http Settings and uncheck http 1.1. and http 1.1. proxy. This worked like a charm for me. I’ve got Vista and IE 8 but it works with IE 6 and 7 as well. Cheers.

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  89. Hi! All of a sudden my hotmail account is acting crazy! For example, there is a sale at Jessica London, the email sending address is correct, but when I click on the link in the email to take me to the sale, the window closes down. I am computer illiterate.

    Also, have McAfee, and yesterday, it got all upset and said I had the trojan virus, and it was going to isolate it, so I immediately closed all windows open, ran the complete scan and it found nothing. So, consider me confused. Perhaps my 86 year old uncle is correct and the internet is “evil” : ) Help please….

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