You cannot forward an e-mail message that is saved as read-only in Outlook 2002 or in Outlook 2003

If you open a read-only HTML formatted e-mail message that is saved to your hard disk drive as a .msg file, and then you try to forward the e-mail message, you receive the following error message:If you open a read-only plain text formatted e-mail message that is saved to your hard disk drive as a .msg file, and then you try to forward the e-mail message, you receive the following error message: However, if you try to reply to a read-only HTML formatted e-mail message or to a read-only plain text formatted e-mail message, you do not receive an error message.

The problem occurs because Microsoft Outlook 2002 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 try to update the read-only e-mail message when the e-mail message is forwarded.

This problem was first fixed in a hotfix that is now contained in a service pack. If you installed the latest Office 2003 service pack, you do not have to install the hotfix.

Service pack information

This problem is corrected in Office 2003 Service Pack 2.

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Office 2003. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Hotfix information

How to obtain the hotfix

This issue is fixed in the Outlook 2003 Hotfix Package that is dated August 2, 2004. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

To work around this problem, you can reply to the e-mail message instead of forwarding the e-mail message. When you reply to the e-mail message, change the recipient name that is in the To field to the appropriate recipient that you want to send the message to.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section. This problem was first corrected in Office 2003 Service Pack 2.

If you change a plain text read-only e-mail message and then forward the e-mail message, you receive the following error message: If you edit an RTF read-only e-mail message then forward the e-mail message, you receive the following error message: This problem is by design when you try to change a read-only e-mail message.