Can't open attachments in Outlook Express

[Mistystar]

Seems I keep loosing things. I have 4 e-mail programs but usually only use 2 of them, outlook express and incredimail. When I used outlook express (my default) any attachments would open in incredimail. I wanted them to open in outlook express since I use that the most. I went to "open with" and told it to open with MISMN and now no attachments will open in my e-mail. When I go to incredimail and try to open the attachments it takes me to outlook express. How can I fix it where I can open attachments? At this point I don't care what it opens in (outlook express or incredimail) I would just like to open them.
Thanks,
Misty::uhoh:

[Mosaic1]

I don't know exactly what file association you changed. But the easiest thing to do would be to revert to a registry from before you made your changes. IF you have done this within the past four days. However, if you do this, you will be replacing your current registry with a previous one and therfore will lost any other changes, insalls, uninstalls etc as well.

Here's how it's done. Restart the computer. Hold the ctrl button down to bring up the boot menu. Choose COmmand Prompt Only from the menu and press enter.


This will bring you to a C Propmt which looks like this:
C:\>

At the prompt type
scanreg /restore and then press enter

Here's that command with the space included. Press the spacebar where I have typed Space.
Scanreg space /restore

Choose the registry, using the arrow keys, from the date right before this happened. Press enter.

[Mistystar]

Thanks Mosaic for your suggestion. I make changes usually a couple times a week and this happened about three weeks ago and until I got several attachments this week I didn't realize I had the problem. I delete things and clean the registry weekly so all that I have done would be back if I understand your message correctly. If I downloaded and installed IE6 with outlook express 6 would that fix it? I like IE5.5 that I have now but would be willing to try IE6 if that would fix it.

[Mosaic1]

I am really not sure what you have done. Attachments should open in the program you are using.
Also, attachments are not one file type. They are jpgs or gifs or eml ot txt or whatever. Do you remember what you used in the Open With list? And what the extension of the attachment was?

That's why I wanted to revert to a previous registry. If this hapenend three weeks ago, that option is not there. An upgrade to OE6 and IE6 is not necessarily the answer. You can try it. However, that is not going to change everything. I am not sure what caused the original problem.
I only rarely use OE. I have a hotmail account which I use so I can answer questions about OE on the Forums.

[TonyKlein]

Hi there,

If you like 5.5, don't upgrade to v. 6.0

What about reinstalling 5.5?

Are you in fact running the Service Pack 2?

Take a look on the IE menu > Help > Info.

Does it mention SP2?

I'm thinking that reinstalling (rather than repairing) Internet Explorer (including OE) might well restore the correct file associations.

[Mistystar]

Unfortunately Mosaic I don't know what they are. They just say fwd and the name of it, no extension listed. I told it to open with MISMN and it is possible the always use this to open with may have been checked. What ever I did they won't open. Strange thing is they must not be an exe as I sent myself a screen saver in exe form from my husbands computer and that opened and installed for me.
Tony, I do like 5.5 and I have the sp2 as I keep everything updated on my PC so if installing IE6 might not fix the problem then I don't want it, mainly because I had heard there were some problems with it.
If I do the reinstalling of 5.5 exactly how do I go about that? Do I need to uninstall it first? This sounds like the thing to try and see if that works by putting everything back the way it was.

[TonyKlein]

You don't need to uninstall it first ; let's just install it on top of itself.

First, do a little bit of cleaning up:

Empty the contents of your Windows\temp folder completely.
Next, go to Start/Find, and type wininit.ini
If/when found, highlight the file and hit 'delete'

Now the first thing to do is to fool Windows into believing you're running an older version of IE/OE, or it won't let you reinstall.

You can do that by editing the version info:

Go to Start > Run, and type Regedit.

Drill down to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer.

Doubleclick the 'version' value in the right pane, and edit it to change the 5.50 part to 5.00

IE Setup will now think you're running an older version of Internet Explorer, and you'll be able to run IE setup and reinstall IE in its entirety.

Don't forget to shut down as many running programs as possible, especially your antivirus, before starting the download and install.

You can download IE 5.5 SP2 here. (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/recommended/ie55sp2/default.asp?%20FinishURL=%2Fdownloads%2Frelease%2E asp%3Freleaseid<br%20/>%20%3D31770%26area%3Dtop%26ordinal%3D5%26redirect% 3Dn<br%20/>o)

Good luck, Tony

[Mistystar]

Thanks Tony, that was easy and fast and best of all IT WORKS. :D I printed out the instructions and they were very easy to follow, thanks again. I didn't have the wininit.ini. I am a happy camper now.
Misty

[TonyKlein]

Excellent! :)

I'm glad to hear that worked for you.

Cheers, Tony