Cannot open dat files in outlook

[Arnie1]

I run Outlook 2003 SP2 on two machines, a laptop and a desk machine. The
Outlook settings are identical (on all the options I can find re HTML etc).
Mail with attachments received on the laptop come as dat files and cannot be
opened. The same email when forwarded to my desk machine will show the
attachment properly (as a mail item) and can be opened as normal.
How can I resolve the problem with my laptop?
Thanks

 

[BillR [MVP]]

What message format are they being received in on the Laptop?
This can happen when messages are sent using Rich Text Format -
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278061/en-us

 

[Arnie1]

Thanks Bill - you're right they are being sent in Rich Text format but why
should my laptop not be able to read this when my desktop can (both using
Outlook in an identical manner)? I have no control over the senders I'm
afraid. Arnie1

 

[BillR [MVP]]

Is this for all senders? Can you check if they are actually sending as Rich
Text? If they are then advise them not to. If they aren't then you might be
converting them on receipt which will need to be looked into. Outlook can
"decide" the "best" message format to send over the internet. If you send to
your Laptop over the net it will convert it to html. Well, it will unless
you set it otherwise.

 

[Arnie1]

Thanks Bill. Maybe I ain't explaining this very well. I can download email
from my Yahoo accounts to either machine or to both. The exact same emails
will show the attachments as dat files on the laptop and cannot be opened.
However on the desktop machine the identical email attachment will appear as
an attached mail messages and can be opened as normal. Both machines run the
exact same suite of software i.e. Outlook 2003 on XP.
I fail to see how the senders formating can have any bearing on how one
machine sees the attachment differently from another.
Arnie1

 

[BillR [MVP]]

A mystery for sure.
um, code running in Outlook on teh Laptop? Any add-ins isntalled?