Drag and Drop .msg files to Explorer

[AmC]

Hi there everyone,

Just upgraded from Windows NT4 running Outlook 2000 to Windows XP
running Outlook XP (2002). I have a user who says she used to just
drag emails from outlook to a folder in explorer for archiving.

What used to happen was this:

If the subject of the email is "Fw: Project" then it calls the file
"Fw: Project.msg" in the explorer folder.
Once this email has been forwarded around more, she would drop it into
the folder again and it would call the file "Fw: Project (1).msg" ie
append the (1) onto the end of the file. By the end of the
conversation, she's got a list of files in that folder like this:

Fw: Project.msg
Fw: Project (1).msg
Fw: Project (2).msg
Fw: Project (3).msg
Fw: Project (4).msg

I've tested it and it does indeed append the number.

What happens in the new version of Outlook and XP is that the second
time she drops the file into the folder, it says "This folder already
contains a file names "Fw: Project.msg"- Would you like to replace the
existing file? [size], modified [date] with this one "Unknown Date and
Size" Yes/No/Cancel."

Disregarding personal opinions on this filing method p), can anyone
tell me how can you get Explorer to automatically append the number to
the end of the file when it's dragged from Outlook like it did in NT
and Outlook 2000?

Any help appreciated!

Kind Regards,

AmC.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Her method has some advantages I sometimes do it to keep all my docs
together in a zip or on a cd.

I can repro your experience - but also get the numbers added when I drag to
folders. if she can wait to drag the messages until she has all of the
messages, they get the # - but I don;t know if the # are in the right
order....

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
http://www.poremsky.com - http://www.cdolive.com

Expert Zone http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone

Search for answers: http://groups.google.com
Most recent posts to the Outlook newsgroups:
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_ugroup=microsoft.public.outlook.*&num=30

 

[AmC]

Her method has some advantages I sometimes do it to keep all my docs
together in a zip or on a cd.

I can repro your experience - but also get the numbers added when I drag to
folders. if she can wait to drag the messages until she has all of the
messages, they get the # - but I don;t know if the # are in the right
order....

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
http://www.poremsky.com - http://www.cdolive.com

Expert Zone http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone

Hi Diane,

Thanks for the reply! Yep it does seem to have it's advantages- thing
is it seems that if it no longer works the same way then it'll be a
problem.

I had the idea that maybe there might be a solution to do with file
associations (ie the 'default action' in explorer). I once had someone
who required that all word doc's be opened as 'document1.doc' when you
double clicked them in Explorer. So I changed the default action from
"open" to "New" and it worked fine- double clicking a doc called
'resume.doc' would open as 'document1.doc'.
I had a quick go at changing explorers default action for .msg files
but looking at technet there didn't seem to be any outlook.exe
switches that could do the same thing.

Anyone got any ideas? I hate it when upgrading software removes
functionality.. (that's the way the user sees it anyway).

Kind Regards,

AmC.