Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Outlook Express attachments

Aug 26, 2005 6:25PM PDT

Lately when I go to insert a file attachment into Outlook Express instead of one icon called say when.txt I get about 9 icons with the individual letters w-h-e- n . txt and maybe another one or two blanks-sometimes it also includes the document and settings letters with a separate icon for each and you end up with over 40 icons in the file attachment area of OE. This would appear to come from the C drive folder Documents and settings.


Clicking on any of these multiple icons for that one file attachment that it is supposed to be evokes the response - for instance if I click on the letter p
with these multiple icons I get "Windows can not find 'C\P' . Make sure you typed the name correctly,and then try again. To search for a file , click the Start button , and then click Search"

I use Windows XP Pro and have done a virus scan etc to eliminate any problems from nasties.

Forgot to mention if I am in safe mode or if I drag and drop the file onto the email it attaches normally as it should. It is only when I use the menu Insert/File attachment option.

Has anybody got any clues as to what is happening here?

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Do you mean the "Attach" button?
Aug 26, 2005 10:29PM PDT

Hi Dick.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

In OE, when you click on the Compose button to compose a new message, and you want to attach a document, file, etc, what happens when you click on the "Attach" button on the tool bar?

You should get a dialogue box called "Insert Attachment", which has a small display, usually defaulted to your My Documents folder, and My Documents is displayed in the "Look in:" section.

If the dialogue box defaults to some other folder, the name of the folder should be shown in the "Look in:" section. If you're not sure where on the C drive that folder is, click the down arrow there to see the full tree. However strangley on mine, when I click on the down arrow, the display changes to Desktop, and loses the My Documents contents.

If you are getting a number of odd files in displayed, what can you see when you open your My Documents folder from the desktop?

What you see displayed in the Insert Attachment dialogue box should only be what is stored in your My Documents folder.

Mark

- Collapse -
Use the Insert / File attachment button on OE
Aug 27, 2005 4:03AM PDT

The files I am attaching could be in any folder. Sometimes for instances I may be attaching a screenshot graphic from a folder I called D:\ScreenShots.

In this case the icons from top to bottom in the attach window for a file called page2.jpg are g p j D 2 e g a p blank s t o h s n e e r c s blank :

which shows in reverse except for the colon and D screenshots page2.jpg-the folder and name of the file with the D and the colon indicating the drive. All I should have in that attach Window is one icon called page2.jpg ......the file called be a text file or anything and I have only chosen this as an example.

As I said in previous message-if I drag and drop or go into safe mode the file attaches as page2.jpg as it should.

- Collapse -
Yep
Aug 27, 2005 6:50AM PDT

that's definitely not right is it.

I'm not sure how to answer this one. I would have suggested;

1] Delete all OE your *.dbx files after saving any emails you want to save and let OE replace them, but I don't think this is a problem with corrupted dbx files.

The OE dbx files are stored here;
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{letters&numbers}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

or

2] Uninstall OE and reinstall, but save your dbx files first and reinstate them afterwards. You will need your Office CD to uninstall and re-install, and reboot the computer between the two actions.

But I don't know if that will help either. You would need to save your address book, (File > Export), and your email account settings.

I don't know what else to suggest, and hopefully someone clever will come along and give you a solution. If you get no response here, try the PC Utilities and Applications forum, or the Microsoft Office forum, they are more specific forums.

Mark

- Collapse -
Yep
Aug 29, 2005 1:13PM PDT

Mark, I am not clever enough to figure the problem out. The only thought I had to the post before I read yours, was to re-install lookout.
Hundreds of us at our workplace have problems with it also. Why so many problems with Microsoft Outlook/Lookout!?
Thanks,

-Kevin

- Collapse -
Why.
Aug 29, 2005 9:15PM PDT

Microsoft considers Outlook Express to be a freebie and nothing more than a demo. If you don't believe me that's OK, but after trips to Redmond and many tradeshows this is the impression I'm left with.

Cheers,

Bob

- Collapse -
Why.
Sep 7, 2005 3:00PM PDT

Bob, I believe everything you say and answer with.
What is better than OE?
I have to use it at work and we have a really old version of it. I do not like it at all.
Freebie? Figures!
Thanks,

-Kevin

- Collapse -
Not that you'll like it...
Sep 7, 2005 11:11PM PDT

The other 2 I use are:

Outlook 2000. Why? Work provides it. Seems almost solid enough. Yes it has a bug but we're used to the bug and how to get around it. As far as I've seen, the bug endures up to Outlook 2003.

Mozilla's email client. While unusable with MSN email, it does work ok.

Where is Nirvana?

Bob

- Collapse -
Ok with me
Sep 8, 2005 3:41PM PDT

Bob,
My wife works for a medical research group and uses OE. Wonderful with her company because they have an IT person that is always on top of everything for them.
The man is a programmer also, like you.
I just have to pay attention that I do not send out a graphic file as a MIME file.

Where is Nirvana!!?? (Double Interobang, almost)

-Kevin

- Collapse -
This is hard to believe
Oct 22, 2005 3:39AM PDT

Got a new PC recently-transferred email to it. All working well for a week or so and now it has started to do the same as the old PC with the same symptoms as I started the thread off with. To me this points to some kind of corruption or removal of some necessary file -but trying to find out what and why seems impossible.

- Collapse -
I hope you found the answer
Dec 16, 2005 7:57AM PST

I Have the exact smae issue. when I drag a file into the message it works fine otherwize if I click attach file it doe's just like you say. Weird to say the least. I can send attachements just fine in incredamail so I know it is with outlook express not finding the file even when you select the file i the folder. Please let me know?
also try Incredamail you will love it.