Troubleshooting Problems with Microsoft Outlook 2000 Messages Format (Part 2):

Custom Form Is Not Received When Sent Over the Internet

You send a custom mail message form over the Internet using an Internet Service Provider (ISP), or an Internet Mail Service on a Microsoft Exchange Server computer, but the custom form is not preserved when the recipient receives it.

Cause: Outlook custom forms are stored in a rich text format (RTF), so if the item encounters anything during the transmission process that does not support RTF, the form definition is lost.

NOTE: This requirement is not related to the format of the mail message. This applies to custom mail message forms where the body of the message is formatted for plain text, Microsoft Outlook Rich Text, or HyperText Markup Language (HTML).

To send forms over the Internet, you must enable the Send form definition with item option in the form. Even if you publish the form in two separate organizations and choose to not send the form definition with the item, the message class field is stripped, and therefore, the message opens as a standard mail message when it is received.  

MORE INFORMATION:

Q284214 - OL2000: Custom Form Is Not Received When Sent Over the Internet

How Message Formats Affect Internet Mail

Outlook and the Microsoft Exchange Client sometimes use a special method to package information for sending messages across the Internet. This method is technically referred to as Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF).

The use of TNEF is commonly affected by settings in Outlook that are referred to as "Microsoft Outlook Rich Text Format." Rich Text Format and TNEF are not exactly the same, but they are closely related.

A TNEF-encoded message contains a plain text version of the message, and a binary attachment that "packages" various other parts of the original message. In most cases, the binary attachment will be named Winmail.dat, and may include:

The formatted text version of the message (font information, colors, and such)

OLE objects (embedded pictures, embedded Office documents, and such)

Special Outlook features (custom forms, voting buttons, meeting requests, and such)

Regular file attachments that were added to the original message

In addition to the information listed above, the path to your personal folders file (PST) file and your logon name are embedded in the winmail.dat file. Although this data is not explicitly exposed to the recipient, if the recipient opens the winmail.dat file for editing in a binary or text editor, he can see the path and logon name. Note that no password information is revealed. To ensure that the path to your PST file or your logon name is not included in the winmail.dat attachment, use the steps in this article to send mail that does not include winmail.dat.

Some Outlook features require TNEF encoding to be understood correctly by an Internet e-mail recipient who also uses Outlook. For example, when you send a message with voting buttons to a recipient over the Internet, if TNEF is not enabled for that recipient, the voting buttons will not be received. Alternatively, for sending messages with regular file attachments, TNEF is not needed. If you are sending e-mail with file attachments to a recipient who does not use Outlook or the Exchange Client, you should manually choose to use a mail format that does not require TNEF (such as plain text). By not sending TNEF messages, the recipient will be able to view and save the attachments as expected.

MORE INFORMATION:

Q241538 OL2000: How Message Formats Affect Internet Mail

Messages with Multiple Attachments Sent to AOL Users Do Not Display Correctly

If you send messages with multiple file attachments to America Online (AOL) users, they do not receive the messages in a readable format. Cause: AOL combines the text of the message and the attachments into a single MIME (.mim) file. There are no viewers for files of this type.

More information:

Q223911 - OL2000: Messages with Multiple Attachments Sent to AOL Users Do Not Display Correctly

Back

Related links:

Microsoft Outlook FAQ & Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting Kernel32.dll errors  in Microsoft Outlook

How to backup and restore all of your Outlook 2000 data

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