No attachment visible using HTML email - OE recipients

[Esquire]

Not sure if this is an OL or OE problem. There is a lot of details so please bear with me.

I'm using an OL 2003 SP2 client (upgraded from OL 2002) with all security patches installed. Email is received and sent through my ISP POP3 and SMTP servers. Using HTML format email but not using Word as an email editor.

Lately, even before August patch Tuesday, many of my email recipients using OE are complaining that I have not attached any files to my HTML format correspondences. In fact, when my email arrives the email size is the same as if there is an attachment (e.g., if I include an 1MB file, the email arrives showing 1MB in size and if they save the email to the hard drive as a file, it shows 1MB in size).

I have been trying to duplicate the problem on my computers without success. I've tried sending test email with attachments to my other OL and OE clients, to Hotmail then retrieve it using OE - attachments visible. I also tried reading the email via the web interface on Hotmail and Gmail - both showed there was an attachment correctly.

It wasn't until I helped reinstall my sister's computer last weekend that I managed to duplicate this issue using her OE (all patches installed), so here's what I've found:

HTML format: no attachment visible (email size = with attachment)

Rich Text: no attachment visible (email size = with attachment)

Plain Text: attachment visible!

When I receive the same test email using my own OE, attachment is visible with all email formats.

Furthermore, a friend uses a free webmail service with IMAP access, and when he checks email online as webmail, my attachment is shown as a winmail.dat attachment, but not when he sends a test email to the same address using his own OL 2003 client! I setup an account with the same webmail service but the test email attachment is shown correctly.

It looks like my OL is at fault, but why is it that my OE clients (on other computers) and webmail account are not exhibiting the same problem? My temporary solution is to switch to Plain Text format when composing, but I don't want to do this in the long run.

Where do I go from here to troubleshoot this? Thanks.

Thank you for taking your time in reading.

Edited August 10, 2006 by Esquire