Why does Windows Live Mail strip attachments of ONE contact?

Question

I am trying to solve a very weird issue on one laptop: It has Windows 7 x64 running and is using Windows Live Mail. One specific contact, always gets the attachments stripped/removed. For reference, the file is an JPG picture and a XLS file.

What I have tried :

• Checking on the online web interface of the email service provider if the attachment is there ; and it is actually there and I can download it from the inbox.

• Sending the same attachment from other email addresses to this laptops email address. Even with other contacts, attachments are downloaded. With other emails addresses, this winmail.dat is downloaded without problem.

• Adding this contact into the Safe Sender List and adding the domain to the Safe Sender List.

• Restarting ;)

• Check the attachment type and enable Windows Live Mail to receive ANY attachment file types.

• Check the Security SPAM filter settings ; they are off ! Also, check the first point again - The ISP is not blocking the attachment as it is visible and downloadable from the webmail interface.

• Creating a profile on Microsoft Outlook with the laptops email account : It contains the attachment.

How can I get Windows Live Mail to download attachments for this contact ?

Answer 1

Windows Live Mail doesn't delete attachments. It is probably a matter of the format of the message created by that one contact not being correctly understood by Windows Live Mail.

One likely case is that a message with an attachment is sent using Microsoft Office Outlook or Microsoft Exchange Client using their proprietary RTF format, called TNEF-encoding.

To check, select one of the messages and press Ctrl+F3 to reveal the message source. Attachments will be at the bottom, separated from other parts of the message by a blank line, followed by a line starting with at least two hyphens. They will normally have a Content-Type: declaration telling you what sort of attachment you're dealing with.

You can check for TNEF-encoding by looking for a declaration that looks like this :

Content-Type: application/ms-tnef;

Viewing the message source will also probably tell you which client was used to compose and send the message. Outlook may for example add a header similar to :

X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 14.0

I counsel using a more sophisticated email client than the simple-minded Windows Live Mail, or a webmail service such as Gmail or Hotmail.

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