hotmail navigation arrows and MHT files

billdedman

1. NONE of the emails I get these days that have attachments "mht" will open in my Hotmail mailbox. If I forward them to my G-mail account, they open fine. WHY won't they open in Hotmail? This is irritating.

2. My Hotmail sign-in used to finish filling out the name info in the box, once I had typed just my name... Now, I have to type the entire thing myself. Why did they take away that convenience? I thought this "new" Hotmail was supposed to be an improvement; that's surely not an improvement.

3. I used to be able to read the next email above the one I was reading by clicking on an arrow (pointing up), but that arrow has disappeared and now to get to the next message (above the one I'm reading) I have to go BACK TO THE INBOX and select the message manually. Again, this is irritating. Why did they do away with that "up" arrow?

Thanks for any information.

Bill Dedman

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popowich

Hi Bill,

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension HTML (MHTML), or MHT files, appear to be file format that Hotmail has been having a problem with since the upgrades last month. If you ask the sender to put the attachment(s) in a zip file and send them to you in that format does it fix the problem for you?

For more information see our article how to compress files before sending them.


This sounds more like a browser form auto complete setting to me.

In Firefox I go to the Tools menu and select Options, then go to the Privacy tab.

Another way to fix this problem is to have the Hotmail secure login page remember your e-mail address for you. I never recommend having it also remember your password. To have Hotmail remember your e-mail address go to https://login.live.com and select the option that says save my e-mail address.

I have arrows in my account navigation. Are these the arrows that you are looking for?

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billdedman

Thanks for the replies.

I guess the next question would be, if G-Mail can open these MHT
files without their being compressed, why can't Hotmail?

To ask people to compress every attachment they send is an
unconscionable inconvenience when it's being continually demonstrated
(by G-Mail) that it shouldn't be necessary.

It wasn't necessary before Hotmail changed. This is NOT an
"improvement."

It needs to be "fixed" if they want people to continue to use
Hotmail.

Thanks to your time and attention to this matter.

Bill

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popowich

Hi Bill,
No problem!

Hotmail blocks several extensions that they consider dangerous. I'm not sure if MHT is intentionally one of them or a bug they are working
out, but the zip file solution does seem to be a band-aid that can be used in the meantime.


I agree that sometimes dealing with service providers and their spam policies can be a pain. As a mail server administrator I also know that many e-mail admins are out there trying to do good and what is best for most of their users most of the time. When it comes to anti-spam it's nearly impossible to keep 100% of your users happy 100% of the time. Anyway, it sounds like you may be happier switching to Gmail. You can make this a fairly seamless transition by having your existing Hotmail account automatically forward all new e-mails to your Gmail account. This way you don't need to worry about asking your contacts to send you .zip files, and you also don't need to ask people to send you e-mail at a new e-mail address.

-Raymond

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billdedman

Thanks for the reply, but consider this;

EVERY email attachment I get from friends, on a variety of different
servers (Earthlink, GMail, Yahoo mail, AOL, et al) comes to MY
mailbox with the MHT tag, whether it was originally a jpg, mov., or
whatever...

Hotmail is apparently CHANGING thse files into MHT files.... and,
they don't work.

I'll point out one more time; If G-Mail can take forwarded messages
from Hotmail that have attachments that won't open in Hotmail, and
open them in my G-Mail mailbox, then there's something amiss in the
Hotmail program. They should open.

If Hotmail is deliberately BLOCKING them from opening, then the
viewer should at least have the option of declining the
Hotmail-afforded "protection" and be able to click on a box that will
disable this "big brother" MHT-disabling option.

All this didn't exist with the prior Hotmail. Change it back. This
is certainly not an "improvement."

Thanks again for listening. I appreciate very much the time and
effort you're making with this.

Bill

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popowich

Hi Bill,

I am not able to reproduce the problem with the MHT files but you are definitely not alone. I've been on the lookout for a fix or notice from Microsoft and came across one this morning. This was an unintended side effect of the recent Hotmail upgrades. It sounds like the plan it to fix the problem and not permanently be converting attachments into MHT files.

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