the problem is not with access accounts it is with the mail format

Email users sometimes find that they receive email messages with a strange file attached, called winmail.dat. When they attempt to open this file, either it can't be opened at all, or it contains "garbage" data.

The situation causing this is that people are using several different email client programs to receive, read, and send email. The most commonly used email client programs at GPC seem to be Microsoft Outlook and Netscape (specifically the Messenger component), with a small minority of techno-geeks using Eudora. Unfortunately, Outlook does not "play nice" with the other email programs all the time. This causes problems, not for the sender of the email, but the recipient, particularly when actual files are attached to messages.

The Solutions

If you are receiving these winmail.dat files

I assume at this point that you are not using Microsoft Outlook as your email client program, since this wouldn't be a problem if you were using it.

One solution to the problem is to visit http://www.biblet.com/ and download the WMDecode program found there (look about halfway down the page). This will at least allow you to decode the winmail.dat files and extract any useful attachments from them.

Other than this, there's not much you can do on your end to fix the problem, since it's not your email program generating the problem. If you just don't want to deal with the problem, the other approach is to reply to the individual who sent you the offending email and ask that they re-send the message, with the attached files, as a plain text message, not in Rich Text Format or HTML.

［This topic edited by dawn at 4/14/2006 2:16:08 AM ］