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OL2000: Information About Outlook and Encoded Messages

Article ID: 268547 - View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q268547

SUMMARY

This article shows an example of e-mail encoding and available third-party products to decode encoded messages.

E-mail messages may not be displayed correctly when you receive them. This issue can be caused by many different factors, and is often caused by the e-mail server.

If you use special formatting for text or non-text items (such as pictures or attachments) and the codes within the file are removed, the message is sent in plain ASCII text, no special formatting codes are included, and the message is not displayed correctly. This is a more common issue when your e-mail client is Microsoft Exchange Server Client version 4 or 5. By default, Outlook can receive e-mail messages in the MIME, UUENCODE, or BinHex formats.

If you receive an e-mail message similar the following example, you may want to use a third-party programs to decode the MIME, BinHex, and UUENCODE messages:

Received: by johndoe.mydomain.test.com id <01BEB6A2.7127CDC6@JESEOGP42.mydomain.test.com>; Mon, 14 Jun 1999 13:14:01 -0700 
From: "Test1142" <Test1142@mydomain.test.com> 
To: "Test1142" <Test1142@mydomain.test.com>
Subject: Main Sub Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 13:14:01 -0700 
Message-ID: <18587AAA767AF84DA994C2D60D9F25DD083B@johndoe.mydomain.test.com> 
MIME-Version: 1.0 
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; 
        boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0000_01BEB668.130B3C30" 
content-class: urn:content-classes:message/mail 
X-MS-Has-Attach: yes 
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: 
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2918.600 
X-Foo: top 

This is a multi-part message in MIME format. 

------=_NextPart_000_0000_01BEB668.130B3C30 
Content-Type: text/html; 
          charset="iso-8859-1" 
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable 

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> 
<HTML> 
<HEAD> 
<META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; = charset=3DISO-8859-1"> 
<META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version = 6.0.3915.0"> 
<TITLE>Main Sub</TITLE>
 </HEAD> 
<BODY> 
<P><FONT SIZE=3D2 FACE=3D"Arial">Main Body<FONT FACE=3D"Arial" SIZE=3D2 = COLOR=3D"#000000"> <<Emb>> </FONT></FONT> </P> 
</BODY> 
</HTML>

 ------=_NextPart_000_0000_01BEB668.130B3C30 
Content-Type: message/rfc822 
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 
Content-Disposition: attachment 
From: "Test1142" <Test1142@mydomain.test.com> 
To: "Test1142" <Test1142@mydomain.test.com> 
Subject: Emb Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 13:12:01 -0700 
Message-ID: <18587AAA767AF84DA994C2D60D9F25DD083A@johndoe@mydomain.test.com> 
MIME-Version: 1.0 
Content-Type: text/html; 
        charset="iso-8859-1" 
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable 
content-class: urn:content-classes:message/mail 
X-MS-Has-Attach: 
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: 
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2918.600 
X-Foo: level1 
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> 
<HTML> 
<HEAD> 
<META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; = charset=3DISO-8859-1"> 
<META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version = 6.0.3915.0"> 
<TITLE>Emb</TITLE> 
</HEAD> 
<BODY> 
<P><FONT SIZE=3D2 FACE=3D"Arial">Body</FONT> </P> 
</BODY> 
</HTML>

A few available third-party decoding programs include:

Fastcode32
Wincode
Winzip

The third-party products that are discussed in this article are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of these products.