ItsGeekToMe.co

Q: I used to be on Earthlink and switched to Cox high speed.  I have several friends who send attachments with a .eml extension.  When I switched to Cox, I could no longer open the attachments.  I used the Windows help and followed their directions but they still won’t open.  On the bottom of the directions I printed out it lists downloads of Free Scan Tool & Fix.EML, Free Download of Outlook Express Repair Tool and Fix Outlook Express.  Do you have any suggestions for me?  The attachments are usually from aol. 

– Kay B.
Fort Walton Beach, FL

 A: I think you may be on the wrong track with those scan and repair tools, Kay.  You didn’t really say whether you use webmail, Outlook Express, or some other means to send and receive e-mails, but I think your problem may have less to do with the change from Earthlink to Cox than it does with a change in the client software you use to send and receive your e-mails.

An attachment with a .eml extension is very likely a Microsoft Outlook Express style e-mail message.  In other words, your friends are sending you an e-mail message with another e-mail attached to it as a file.  Outlook Express, and many other e-mail clients recognize files with a .eml extension as a native e-mail file, and will open them without a problem.  The same goes for many webmail implementations.

If you’re using Cox’s webmail to read these, then it would appear that their service doesn’t recognize .eml files as e-mail messages.  If you’re using Outlook Express, then you may be right in looking for file corruption.  You might want to ask your friends who are sending the e-mails this way to make a slight change in the way they forward e-mails.  Instead of forwarding it as an attachment, have them forward it as text.  That will eliminate the forwarded .eml file altogether.

TIP OF THE WEEK: Did you know that Windows allows you to create quick access icons to any drive, folder or file anywhere on your computer?  You can place these shortcuts on your Desktop, in My Documents, or anyplace else that’s convenient to give you one-click access to files that may be buried several levels down a directory tree, or even located on an external hard drive.