Cannot Open Attachments with Live Mail (Outlook.com)

Running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. To access our email we go to msn.com and click on Outlook.com in the upper left of the page. When we open an email with attachments we're given a choice to Open the attachment or to Download it. If we click Open we're taken to an essentially white Outlook.com page with an error message. If I choose Download it again asks me if I want to open it, or where I want to save it. Choosing Open that second time always seems to work, taking me directly into Word, Excel or Adobe Reader depending on whether it's a .docx, .xls or .pdf file. Additionally, if I download the file and save it to a folder it always opens correctly.

Is it a bug in Outlook.com? Or in IE11?

There is no right-clicking available on the attachment within the email. Right-clicking merely brings up the same 3 options available from the little arrow at the right of the attachment. I have used Outlook.com on my laptop - the one I'm using now - and I get the exact same behavior with the email attachments as I do on hers. So it can't really be the computer. I've also tried it on a W7 tower using BOTH Firefox and IE11. Once again, I get the same behavior

So on all 3 computers, with 2 different browsers, it works the same. Left-clicking on the attachment does the 'View'. That don't work. Right-clicking the attachment or using the little arrow on the right of the attachment brings up those 3 choices - View, Download or Save to OneDrive - Personal.

This isn't a windows issue but something going on with their mail. Either they are currently experiencing problems, there are problems with the attachments, or the sender has been blocked. The first screenshot seems to indicate that the sender was blocked. No matter what the issue is you are going to have to contact their support.

townsbg said:

This isn't a windows issue but something going on with their mail. Either they are currently experiencing problems, there are problems with the attachments, or the sender has been blocked. The first screenshot seems to indicate that the sender was blocked. No matter what the issue is you are going to have to contact their support.

Excuse me for being obtuse, but I don't know what you mean. Who do I contact? My wjfe's ISP? My ISP (they are different)? Outlook.com? Are you saying that the Outlook.com user has become corrupt? I'm sure you think your response was crystal clear, but it ain't at my end...

This isn't a problem with your computer or your ISP. It is something within outlook.com or the email. It could be that they blocked attachments in that email because they think that it is spam or it's possible that the files are corrupt so you are going to have to contact Microsoft about it. Perhaps they failed a virus scan. It's also possible that they are having problems with their system. You can also have the sender try to send the email again. Perhaps you could use an account from another email provider for that.

townsbg said:

This isn't a problem with your computer or your ISP. It is something within outlook.com or the email. It could be that they blocked attachments in that email because they think that it is spam or it's possible that the files are corrupt so you are going to have to contact Microsoft about it. Perhaps they failed a virus scan. It's also possible that they are having problems with their system. You can also have the sender try to send the email again. Perhaps you could use an account from another email provider for that.

You don't seem to understand me, and I actually thought I was being clear.

• Every single attachment does open. They open when I click Download and then click Open. I provided a screenshot in post #3 - Do you want to open or save Conf_23385.pdf from attachment.outlook.office.net? Do you see that in the last screenshot at the bottom of post #3? If I click on Open, Adobe Acrobat Reader opens it perfectly. If I click Save and download to a folder and then navigate to the folder AAR once again opens it perfectly. That would seem to preclude the files being corrupt
• If I forward an email from Outlook.com to my AOL account, the attachment opens perfectly simply by clicking on it. That would also seem to preclude the file being corrupt
• Screenshot #1 in post #3 shows me the 3 options I get with an attachment. I get these options either by clicking the little down arrow at the right of the attachment, or by right-clicking the attachment. You'll notice that option 1 is labeled View. If I click on View, I get the result in screenshot 1 of post #1.
• If I simply click on the attachment it tries to View it - apparently by default. As I just mentioned in bullet 3, View does not work.
• If I hover the mouse over the attachment in Outlook.com, it tells me that it is virus free

All we really want is to not have to go through the additional step of clicking download. We never had to do that as recently as last week.

I don't know what I can do to make the issue any clearer beyond you driving to PA and having me demonstrate.

Something I noticed that looks different to me, if I click on a similar attachment in outlook.com I get view online,



Your's just say view,



But from the looks of your first couple screenshots it is trying to open it online,



Do they normally open in the desktop office or have you used the online office apps before?

I wonder what that means? On 3 different computers we get View, Download and Save to OneDrive - Personal, while you get View Online, Save to OneDrive, and Download. Different order, we get the - Personal, while you get the Online appended to View. I'm sure it means something, I just can't imagine what.

And in the past it never attempted to open the attachments online - she says it would just directly open them, same as it now does if I first click Download (and then open). My wife also says that she's sure she never saw any msgs about the sender failing fraud detection checks before this problem started, and she's been getting emails from the same suppliers for a long time. Unfortunately she does not remember if the attachment options used to be the same as yours. And I wouldn't know because I use AOL - not outlook.com.

Also, I don't have MS Office on my laptop - I use OpenOffice. Yet when I access her outlook.com email on my laptop and click View on an attachment, it tries to open it in Word online. If I click Download and then Open it opens the document in OpenOffice Writer. Very odd, since OO has all the defaults on my laptop, and I don't even have a trial version of Office.

My guess is that somehow her outlook.com settings have gotten out of whack, or the profile (if there is such a thing) has gotten corrupted. I just don't know how to check it. Or fix it.

This is apparently some new hideous default for outlook.com - it wants to open every attachment using Office Online, even though it doesn't work on a lot of computers.

So I'll mark this as solved - even though it's not...