Attachments

[Pete W]

I use XP Pro with service pack 2 installed and Office 2003 (and Outlook) all
of which is kept up to date with Automatic updates.

I use C# to read mail received, generate emails responses for certain
messages and content and add attachments, and then save to the Outlook
Drafts folder where I can review the emails before deciding if to send them.

The app is a console application which is run at defined intervals. On a
daily basis it can generate up to about 200 emails.

Part way through a recent run, I got the following error:
Can't create file: filename.doc. Right-click the folder you want to create
the file in, and then click Properties on the shortcut menu to check your
permissions for the folder.

Now even if I manually open an email and want to attach a file, I get the
same issue.

If I rename the file, I can attach it.
If I copy the content to a new file, ditto.
If I delete the blocked file and recreate it, it is still blocked, so the
issue is the file name.
If the run generates 99 emails all with attachment, the file is not blocked.
That happens with the 100th time.
If I do multiple runs, none of which exceed 99, all is OK.
If 100 is reached, the file is blocked perhaps permanently.
All the above are valid emails and not any sort of attempt to Spam.


Questions:
a.. Why 100. The number is too pat to be a coincidence.
b.. What mechanism is it that stores the filenames? It is not registry.
c.. Can this information be changed.
d.. Is it controlled in any way.
e.. What degree of permanence is there to the blocking of individual files
that can no longer be attached.
f.. What relationship is there to XP Service Pack 2 security enhancements.
g.. Does Service Pack 2 block perceived spam at source as well as at
destination?
cheers

Peter

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

I believe this has something to do with the way Outlook generates file names
in the Outlook temp folder (path set in the registry) for attachments. If
the same file already exists in the folder, Outlook will go up to
filename(99).ext but no further. A solution might be to empty the temp
folder as needed.

 

[Pete W]

Thanks Sue

I looked for temp folder and found the following in registry under the key
OutlookSecureTempFolder for the current user under
Software/Microsoft/Office/11.0/Outlook/Security:
C:\Documents and Settings\theUser\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\OLK12\
where theUser is my userName. However the directory did not show even
though all settings to hide files or folders have been reset so that none
are hidden. added \OLK12 in the address bar to the path and lo and behold
it was there. A file search did not reveal these files.

Created new mail, added attachment and lo and behold all worked again

Thanks again.

cheers

Peter