OLEXP: Image May Not Appear in Message Sent with Outlook Express

When you receive a mail or news message sent with Microsoft Outlook Express, images in the message may not be displayed. The image may appear as a box with a red X in it.

This behavior can occur if the linked image file is not located in a publicly available location. The file is not on a Web server or shared network drive, or the file is located on a publicly available location but you are working offline.

To resolve this issue, the sender should use the Send Pictures With Message option to attach the image to the message, or copy the image to a shared location and specify that location in the properties for the image. To do this, use either method:

To Attach an Image to a Message

1. In Outlook Express, on the Tools menu, click Options.
2. On the Send tab, click HTML under Mail Sending Format.
3. To enable sending images as attachments in every message, click Settings, click the Send Pictures With Messages check box to select it, and then click OK.
4. Under News Sending Format, click HTML.
5. Click Settings, click the Send Pictures With Messages check box to select it, and then click OK until all dialog boxes are closed.
6. Click Compose Message, and then click the message text box.
7. On the Insert menu, click Picture.
8. In the Image Source box, browse to or type the path to the image, and then click OK.
9. On the Tools menu, make sure that there is a check mark next to Send Pictures With Message. If there is no check mark, click to select Send Pictures With Message.
   
   NOTE: You must perform this step each time you want to send pictures with your newsgroup message.
10. Complete your message and on the File menu, click Send Message.

To Place an Image in a Shared Location

1. Copy the image file to a publicly available location such as a Web server (for the Internet) or a shared network folder (for an intranet). Recipients of the message should have at least read-access privileges to the shared location.
2. If you are inserting a new image in a message, on the Insert menu, click Picture. If you are modifying an image that is already inserted in the message, right-click the image, and then click Properties.
3. In the Image Source box, browse to or type the address of the image, such as:
   
   Internet example: http://example.microsoft.com/MyImage.gif (http://example.microsoft.com/MyImage.gif)
   
   intranet example: file://\\MyServer\MyShare\MyImage.gif
4. Click OK.

When the option to send pictures with messages is not selected, the message contains a pointer or link to the image. The image source points to the location of the image and is equivalent to the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) <IMG SRC=""> tag. Because the image is not included in the message, the message size is smaller and download time is reduced. Also, the image can be updated at the public or shared location without having to send another message.

If the link is to image files residing on the sending computer's hard disk, mail and newsgroup recipients may not have access to the image. If the person receiving the message does not have the file in the same folder on his or her local hard disk, he or she does not see the image file.

NOTE: With default stationery selections, the recipient may or may not have the intended image in the same location on their hard disk as the sender. If the image points to a valid local file, the image appears as though it was attached even though it was inserted from a local file on the sender's computer when the message was created.