Okay, I am having trouble extracting attachments (.docx, .xlsx) from my webmail account. Background…
This is a work computer. My email is run from my company, but I often go to the customer site. We have webmail access to the work email, which allows reading from customer site. There is a lab space with a computer that I often use to do work. A couple of weeks ago, the customer updated that machine to Windows 2007. Since then, I have been unable to extract attachments from the email account.
Normally, I can attach a file, say from my office computer, and send it out as email. Open the email on a different computer, even through webmail, and open the attachment, and it opens in the correct application. Since this change, however, on this one computer, instead of opening as a .docx file in Word, it identifies the file as a .zip file and wants to open with Winzip. I can’t get the file to open or extract to a .docx file.
Is there some setting I am missing that I need to correct? I am not the only one with this problem, someone else using the same computer had the same issue. On other computers, the same email attachment opens fine. I am sure it is this one computer.
Unfortunately, I called the customer IT today, but they noticed I was trying to extract from my company webmail and told me to contact my company IT, even though the issue is computer specific and not related to my company. Sigh
My guess it that there is something telling the computer to recognize the attachments as .zip rather than .docx. I do not know where this is, or how to access it.
Can anyone help?
Have you tried saving the attachment to your drive and open it from there? (outside the jurisdiction of your email reader)
Also, Windows 2007? Did you mean Windows 7?
You mention webmail. So you’re using a web browser to view your mail? Which browser? It’s possible your browser’s file associations need to be looked at/fixed.
Thought up a couple more useful points.
First, it only happens with email attachments. .docx files from my flash drive open normally.
Second, I am using Internet Explorer (vs. ?) as the web browser.
Yeah, Windows 7. Don’t know why my brain made it 2007.
I cannot save the attachment. It keeps treating it as a .zip file. I can save it as a .zip, but then still wants to open with Winzip, and I can’t figure out how to make it extract.
So saving your attachments and opening from where you save to rather than directly opening them should work.
edit: Just saw your second reply. Odd. Have you tried simply renaming the file from .zip to .docx once you’ve saved it?
docx files are zip files. There are two work-arounds.
- Rename the file so it ends in .docx.
- Manually start Word and the open the file (change the file dialog to “All Files .”), then Save As whatever you like.
I get the same problem when I use my companies Outlook webmail. I think it’s something to do with the security/spam filter on the mail server. It sees a files coded as a zip file, so it forces it to be a zip file.
I’ll try the save and rename. I was hoping I could fix the automated recognition thingy, whatever it is.
I was thinking it might be some spam stopper thing, but then why does it only affect the one computer? But I need to confirm if other Win 7 users have the same issue. Hmm.