Have you ever heard from recipients of your e-mail that a mysterious attachment called "Winmail.dat" is sent along with your e-mail? You don't have an intention to send such an attachment, but it does appear in your e-mail. Why?
This issue commonly occurs if you are using Microsoft Outlook 2010 or Outlook 2007 to send e-mails in Rich Text Format (RTF). When Outlook sends an e-mail using RTF, it includes the formatting commands in the "Winmail.dat" file. If the e-mail software that your recipient is using does not support RTF, it couldn't understand the code inside the file and therefore display it as an unusable attachment.
You can prevent Outlook from attaching "Winmail.dat" file by making sure Outlook does not even try to send e-mails using RTF. The steps are simple:
- Click File in Outlook.
- Select Options.
- Go to the Mail category.
- Make sure HTML or Plain Text is selected for Compose messages in this format: under Compose messages.
- Now make sure Convert to HTML format or Convert to Plain Text format is selected for When sending messages in Rich Text format to Internet recipients: under Message format.
Read Microsoft Knowledge Base for more details or write to ITSC Service Desk for enquiries.
