Earthlink/Outlook Express glitch
 

A co-worker has me stumped.
His cable/isp uses earthlink email, and Bob uses Outlook Express to view his email. Last week, anything other than plain text started coming through garbled, like trying to veiw yEnc encoded files with a non-yEnc newsreader. Bob has spent 10 hours on the phone with Earthlink tech support, and other computer-savvy acquaintances with no solution.
He's still running WindowsME (idiot!), and doesn't want to change.
Any clues?
Thanks!

first thing i'd do is check to make sure that it's not the mail coming in that's the problem- if he goes to earthlink's webmail - does it look normal there?

He's never used the web mail. He'll try it... I'll report back.
Thanks, mal!

as an application it sucks - but it will show you right away whether or not the problem is with his mail or just with outlook express...

Monday night, Bob used Earthlinks web-based email and all messages and attachments were perfectly displayed. He then opened outlook express, and the messages were scrambled as previously described. Bob sent himself a message with images from outlook express. He opened the messages with web mail to find them equally scrambled.
The problem seems to be in outlook express' encoding/decoding of non-text content. I've contemplated telling Bob to re-install ME on top of the old install. Maybe that would repair the damaged part of the program?

it's been a while since i've seen outlook express -is there still an option to display text in either html or in text format? Sounds lik ethat's what got stepped on...

Installing Outlook express would probably fix it..

OE is a module of Windows. So, this requires a full ME install?

No, OE can be uninstalled/reinstalled independent of ME. You'll find it in add/remove programs, under Windows Components; or at least, I think that's where it is. It's been years since I've seen ME (and I still wake up screaming some nights...)

I'd take this as an opportunity to get Bob on a client that isn't so kludgey. Show him Thunderbird and he'll never look back.

I'd check that it iisn't a UUencode / MIME problem.

Tools options mail format.

Easy fix, try Mozilla's thunderbird program.
Remember to set it to use IMAP on that account, or, if Earthlink only offer POP email, to set it to leave a copy on the server otherwise Thunderbird will have some email and OE the rest.

Excellent suggestions! I'll email them over to bob....oh oh, that won't work (hehe).