Previewing or attaching Outlook 2010 attachment saves it on desktop

[ubose]

Suddenly for some days now Outlook 2010 has started doing this. Whenever I preview or open (not save) an attachment in an Outlook email, one copy (sometimes two copies) of the attachment downloads to my Windows 7 desktop. This also happens when I am writing a new email and I attach a file to the email; a copy of the attachment gets saved to the desktop.

I have been wondering what changes I made to my Outlook 2010 recently that may be causing this. I did make one change to my Windows 7 registry when I followed the steps on this webpage to change the default location for saving attachments in Outlook 2010. The webpage is at https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ds...tion-when-saving-attachments-in-outlook-2010/. It involved adding a new string value. I went back to the registry and deleted the string, but Outlook is still doing the same thing.

Any help will be appreciated.

 

[Ranger4]

Why did you make changes to Outlook in the first place?.

You might have noticed that in that blog link you posted, it states that these changes do not work for Outlook 2010.

Are you sure that you have reverted the Registry changes you made, so they are exactly as they were before you made changes.

You could see where Outlook is storing it's Data Files. To do that open Control Panel, click on Mail Outlook, then select Data Files, click on the email account in question & see where the data files are. You may have one on the Desktop, which would need to returned to it's correct place which is usually in,
C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook., the xxxx being your user name.

 

[ubose]

I wanted to change the default location for saving Outlook attachments and inserting attachments to a new email to my Windows desktop. By default Outlook was bringing up a different location and I had to navigate to my desktop every time to save or insert attachments.

When I found that blog page, I thought I saw in the comments on that page that it will work in Outlook 2010 too. The blog said to insert a new string value to the registry key. I went back and deleted it.

Now I am thinking that I may have made one more change like it says here https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/252732/how-to-set-the-default-attachment-folder-in-outlook. I did the following:

1. I went to the registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
2. I double-clicked Personal in the right pane, and for the value of the path I entered: %USERPROFILE%\Documents

If I have to change that back to what it was, I don't remember what I had there. What do I do?

 

[ubose]

Oh yes, I also checked the location of Outlook's data files. They are at the same location that Ranger4 said - C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook.

 

[Ranger4]

Right click on the Attachment showing on your Desktop & then select Open Folder Location, it may say Open File Location depending on whether it's a file or a folder. This should take you to where the folder or file is located, then you can decide what to do with it.

 

[ubose]

Because the attachment is already downloaded to my desktop, I know its folder location - it is the desktop! The right-click menu does not show the Open File Location either. Am I following you correctly?

On another note, is there a way to reset Outlook 2010 so that it will take it back to its original settings? If not, will reinstalling Outlook 2010 fix it?

 

[Ranger4]

Uninstalling & reinstalling Outlook should fix most of the problems. This MS website might help you uninstall Outlook & reinstall it.

Install or remove individual Office 2010 programs and components - Office Support

Before you uninstall Outlook, delete those files from your Desktop, so they don't cause any problems with the reinstall.

The only problem I can see is that the changes you made to the Registry might still cause a problem if it has not been reversed to exactly as it was before the changes.

 

[HammerHead]

Saved

Did you copy your registry before making changes? If so just revert to your unchanged copy.
Maybe you have a restore point that would work.

 

[ubose]

I did not back up my registry

I did not make a backup copy of the registry, but I have learned a lesson here. I shall back up my registry in future. So do I just export the whole registry as a backup, and import it if I have restore the registry backup?

Restoring from a restore point is a good idea, but I can't remember how many weeks ago I edited the registry. Maybe I'll take a guess if nothing else works.

 

[ubose]

I want to add another observation I made about my problem. The abnormality I started this thread with is that when I preview or open an attachment in Outlook 2010, two copies of the attachment get downloaded to my Windows desktop. Now I notice that when I delete the email with which the attachment came, one of those attachment file copies disappears from the Windows desktop. The second copy also disappears once I close Outlook. It looks like those copies of the attachment are being temporarily stored on my Windows desktop. This is probably occurring due to whatever changes I made to the registry. So, if I cannot figure out a solution, I may have to live with this annoyance. Thank goodness it is not breaking anything seriously.

 

[Ranger4]

I think what you have done is change the Save As command that you would use to save an attachment from an incoming email.

Now instead of saving the attachment to My Documents in your Document Library it is saving it to the Desktop.

Have a look at this MS website which was linked from the MS blog site in your first Post.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...are-saved-in-outlook-2003-and-in-outlook-2007

If you carefully read through all of it paying attention to the directions carefully you should be able to get it to work properly. I think where it talks about Office you need to use 14 for 2010.

When you get to the bottom it instructs you to insert where you want the Outlook Attachment stored. This should be a folder in your Documents Library, so you can find it easily, it should not be on the Desktop.

 

[ubose]

Yes I wanted to change the Save As location to the Windows desktop, and I did that by following the instructions on the blog page you mention. I followed through to the last steps to create a new string value in the registry and set the DefaultPath value to the desktop. Later to stop the attachment files from saving to the desktop, I deleted the string value I had added in the registry. I expected this to make Outlook go back to its default Save As location, but the attachment files continue to appear on the desktop. So, if you are saying to add a new string value to make what the Outlook's default action should be doing, then I have to say that I am now apprehensive to fiddle with the registry again after having caused a problem the first time. I shall try removing and reinstalling Outlook 2010 to see if that adds the default behavior back to Outlook. I understand that installing a software adds the related registry entries. If that is true then I am hoping that the installation of Outlook 2010 should fix the problem.

I shall appreciate if someone can tell me the easiest way to back up the registry and then to restore it. I am wondering if the Export/Import functions in the registry editor will do it.

 

[Ranger4]

This MS website should help you with backing up the Registry.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/322756/how-to-back-up-and-restore-the-registry-in-windows