[Mimedefang] survey: dropping password protected file

Les Mikesell les at futuresource.com
Thu Mar 4 11:01:55 EST 2004


On Thu, 2004-03-04 at 07:17, Joseph Brennan wrote:
> That's exactly what we did.  Thus, my unhappiness with not accepting
> them now.
> 
> Besides, what will be next?  hqx?  sit?  tar?  I don't use Windows;
> I wonder whether the other archive and compression formats are as
> easy to open, or whether Microsoft will make them so if zip is
> deprecated.

The process of 'opening' isn't built into outlook, hence the
problem.  The same thing happens for an outlook attachment
as would happen to a file.  When you double-click it, the
handler registered for that file extension executes.  If winzip
is installed and has registered itself as the handler for
tar (and I think it does), then a tar attachment will open
automatically just like zip.  Likewise for any other type - if
you have a handler, outlook will run it.  In old/unpatched versions
of outlook this is even worse.  Some file types are processed
automatically in the preview pane, like playing sounds.  The
old bug used the Mime content-type header to decide when to
run something automatically but the file extension to decide
what handler to run...

---
  Les Mikesell
   les at futuresource.com





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