Open (view) attachment

[Bill Stanton]

I downloaded the viewer for file type psd,
Adobe PhotoShop file. I can save the psd
file attachment and open it, but I cannot
get Outlook 2010 to recognize that the
viewer exists and should be employed when
I attempt to "preview" the attachment
directly from within Outlook. I just get
the error message that there is no viewer
available for that file type.

How do I get Outlook to recognize the viewer?

Thanks,
Bill

[VanguardLH]

Did you ever associate PSD files with the viewer you installed? In
Windows Explorer, right-click on a .psd file, pick your viewer from the
list or browser to its executable, and remember to check the option to
always associate that handler with that filetype.

[Bill Stanton]

That seemed to have been done with the install of the viewer. I checked
to see what application Win 7 Pro associated with that file extension
and everything looked to be in order.

I saved the attachment and directed Windows Explorer to open the file
and it automatically used the viewer to open the file. With all of
that, I assumed everything to be in order.

[VanguardLH]

So what do you mean by "preview directly from within Outlook"? Outlook
isn't the viewer app. It isn't the handler associated with the
filetype. Outlook isn't going to show you the attachment because (1)
the attachment needs to be extracted (decoded) and saved somewhere for
anything to look at it and (2) Outlook isn't the handler for that
filetype so something ELSE will have to load and then open that file.
So apparently Outlook is behaving correctly.

[Bill Stanton]

I realize Outlook isn't the "viewer app". Rather, I had to download the
psd viewer from Adobe (actually C!Net). What I want to do in Outlook is
"right click" the attachment, choose "Preview" and have
Outlook launch the viewer and pass it the file.

For example, if I were to receive a pps file as an attachment, Outlook
would launch Powerpoint and pass it the attached file were I to
"right-click" the attachment and choose "Preview" OR "Open".

[VanguardLH]

Where is this Preview function on an attachment. In OL2003, I only see
the following context menu selections with right-clicking on an
attachment:

Open
Print
Save As ...
Remove (disabled)
-------------------
Cut (disabled)
Copy
Paste (disabled)
-------------------
Select All

If I double-click on the attachment, I get a dialog window with the
choices to Open or Save.

Open is going to extract the long text string (decode it) from the MIME
part in the body for the attachment's content. It then has to save it
somewhere to pass that file to the handler. For the Open action, it
saves the extracted attachment in the Outlook secure temporary file
folder. It's possible that this folder has filled up (there is a max
size for it configured in the registry). That's usually because Outlook
didn't gracefully close the file to release the file handle and delete
the temporary copy of the file.

Do you have problems opening (previewing) attachments of different
filetypes that are the same size, or larger, as the psd attachment? You
cannot Open an attachment to create a file that is larger than the free
space in the limited-sized Outlook secure temp folder.

If you need to clean out the Outlook secure temp folder because too much
left over crap is occupying it, first figure out where is this folder.
To find the folder name, look in the registry under:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\<version>\Outlook\Security

where <version> is whatever version of Outlook that you installed; e.g.,
10.0 for Office XP, 11.0 for Office 2003, and so on. The data item
named "OutlookSecureTempFolder" points to Outlook's temporary file path.
Exit Outlook, go into that temp folder to delete any remnant temp files
still in there, and then reload Outlook to Open the attachment.

For Outlook 2010, see:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/preview-attachments-HA010355566.aspx

I doubt Microsoft has included an in-built viewer for every possible
filetype that can be an attachment to an e-mail. So while previewing
works for the viewers that come with Outlook, you need to use an
external viewer for filetypes that Outlook cannot handle. Perhaps if
the viewer's installation added an add-on to Outlook to handle the PSD
filetype then it would preview inside of OL2010.

http://kb1.med.cornell.edu/download/attachments/1245318/picture189.gif

I missed which version of Outlook that you have I don't have OL2010 but
my guess is Preview means to preview inside of Outlook and Open means to
pass to the handlers associated to the filetype. From the snapshot of
the context menu shown above, it looks like you use Preview when the
attachment is a filetype that the in-built Outlook viewers can handle;
otherwise, use the Open action to extract and pass the attachment to an
external handler.

[Bill Stanton]

[snip]

The issue is with Outlook 2010. The right-click options are "Preview",
"Open", "Save As", etc.

The attachment is only 3MB and a fresh boot would give max working
space, so I doubt that is the problem.

Other attachments, like a jpg, preview without any problems. I don't
think we need to spend any more of your time on this, as there's some
weird subtlety about the issue that is probably wasting both our time.
I can save the attachment and preview it from WE.

Thanks for your thoughts and consideration.
Bill

[VanguardLH]

Did you check the Trust manager to make sure your psd viewer is listed
and that it is enabled?

> The attachment is only 3MB and a fresh boot would give max working
> space, so I doubt that is the problem.

The Outlook secure temporary folder's content doesn't change because of
unloading Outlook or rebooting Windows. Whatever is in there will still
be in there after a reboot. It is *Outlook* that is supposed to empty
the temp files from this folder; however, if Outlook crashes or it
somehow gets disconnected from those temp files, the temp files just
continue to linger in that folder until YOU flush them out.

> Other attachments, like a jpg, preview without any problems.

Yep, those use different viewers. Those viewers are probably trusted by
Outlook's trust center. See the bottom of the Microsoft article on
turning on/off viewers in the Trust Center.

> I don't
> think we need to spend any more of your time on this, as there's some
> weird subtlety about the issue that is probably wasting both our time.
> I can save the attachment and preview it from WE.

If the viewer isn't trusted, it won't be allowed to use Outlook's
preview pane to show the attachment. That's why I mentioned using the
Open action instead of Preview so the external viewer app gets used
based on the filetype association. That assumes the psd viewer isn't
listed in the Trust Center or, if it is, that you leave it disabled.

[Bill Stanton]

Hummmmm! I looked at the Trust Center before I ever posted my original
question and didn't see any option to "ADD"...........I'll have another
look.

[Bill Stanton]

On 03/13/2013 12:19 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

The psd viewer isn't listed in the Trust Center and I don't see an
option to add one.

When I use the right-click option to "Open" the file, the viewer
launches okay, but the expected image does not display.

[VanguardLH]

Doesn't look like the user can add attachment previewers to Outlook's
Trust Center list. The program would have to somehow add itself to that
list. From what I see at:

http://blog.techgalaxy.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/trust_center2.png

it looks like the only attachment previewers available are those that
Microsoft decided to include. The MS article says:

To preview an attached file that was created in an Office 2010
application, you must have that Office application installed on your
computer. For example, to preview an Excel attachment in Outlook, you
must have Excel installed. Third-party software vendors may provide
previewers that support additional attachment file types.

So you need to have the other Office components installed to use them as
previewer apps. A 3rd party vendor (Adobe) would have to somehow
install their own previewer app and get it added to the previewers list.
I have yet to find an article saying how a 3rd party vendor gets their
previewer app added to the trusted list.

> When I use the right-click option to "Open" the file, the viewer
> launches okay, but the expected image does not display.

Did you yet empty out the Outlook secure temp folder?

What happens when you save the file and then double-click on it in
Windows Explorer?

[Bill Stanton]

If I first save the file, the viewer has no problem viewing the file
from WE.

[VanguardLH]

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> Did you yet empty out the Outlook secure temp folder?

You have not yet addressed this possible issue.

[Bill Stanton]

Yes, I realize that. I should have access to the client
machine on Friday.

I'll have to look at the Register to get the location
of the folder. The psd file is only 3MB and I still get
failures after a fresh boot, so the allocation would have
to be unbelievably low.

[VanguardLH]

No, there isn't enough FREE space could be the problem. The Outlook
secure temp folder has some max size (I'd have to Google around to find
it). That is, it has a disk quota. If its max size is N but currently
there are orphaned files there that occupy more than N - 3MB then there
isn't enough room left for that 3MB file. I seem to recall that it
isn't size (in bytes) but number of files, like only 100 files can be
opened/orphaned in that folder. So there could be 100 in there already
and you cannot open the 101st one. See if the user can open an
attachment of some other filetype in a different e-mail message.

I rarely open (view) an attachment by having Outlook extract the
attachment into the Outlook secure temp folder and have the handler open
it from there. When an e-mail arrives, I already know if I want to keep
it or not. If it's something that I don't want to keep then it's likely
something that I'm not going to bother viewing. If I'm going to keep
the attachment, I save it somewhere OTHER than in the e-mail; i.e., I
save it into a file somewhere on my drive. I don't Outlook's message
store (or for any other e-mail client that I've used) to store files.
But that's what I do with attachments.

If you do find orphaned files in the Outlook secure temp folder, tell
the user to NOT close Outlook while they have the attachment being
viewed. It is exiting Outlook while the attachment is still being
viewed that causes the orphans. Outlook cannot close the file and
delete it because something else (the [pre]viewer) has it open.

Attachments remain in the Outlook Secure Temporary File folder when you
exit Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007, or Outlook 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817878

You mentioned the user is using Outlook 2010. This article says the
problem got fixed in SP1 for Office 2010. If the user has been keeping
Windows up to date (by using Microsoft Update instead of Windows Update)
then he probably already has Office 2010 SP1 which means it's not a
problem with a filled up secure temp folder.

I don't see how they could fix the problem. Outlook exits and something
still had a handle on the open file. That means Outlook cannot delete
the file while some other process has a handle on that file unless
Outlook was so rude as to kill the owning process. That might be
possible with the in-built previewer apps that integrate into OL2010 but
not if an external app is the handler that opens the file.

[Bill Stanton]

I don't think the Off 2010 is at SP1. Windows Update doesn't do that.
Rather, one needs to go to MS Office and download the SP. I'll do that
first so I know what's expected of Outlook.
>

[Bill Stanton]

On 03/14/2013 5:02 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

Doesn't a re-boot clear out any orphans?
>

[VanguardLH]

Bill Stanton wrote:

> I don't think the Off 2010 is at SP1. Windows Update doesn't do that.
> Rather, one needs to go to MS Office and download the SP. I'll do
> that first so I know what's expected of Outlook.

That's odd. I thought I've gotten service packs for Office 2003 via
Microsoft Update. Note I said Microsoft Update, not Windows Update.
You have to let the Windows Update site install the new ActiveX control
for Microsoft Update. Windows Update only handled Windows. Microsoft
Update handles both Windows and Office updates. After installing the
"Microsoft Update" AX control, and when visiting the WU site, you see
"Microsoft Update" at the upper right of the page. They rename the page
to reflect it checks for updates on all (well, many) Microsoft products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_update#Microsoft_Update
"On 1 August 2009 Microsoft decommissioned the Office Update service as
such;[8] its functionality is subsumed within Microsoft Update."

According to

Support for Microsoft Service Packs
http://support.microsoft.com/sp

and clicking on "Office", the following Microsoft articles:

Description of Office 2010 SP1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2460049

Description of the 2007 Office suite SP3 and of Office Language Pack 2007 SP3
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2526086

How to obtain the latest service pack for Office 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/870924

say the expected route to obtain the Office service packs is through MU
(http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate). Make sure the client has
migrated from WU to MU. The user has to elect to replace WU with MU;
else, they're stuck with WU and can't use the Office Update site that no
longer exists. A new AX control gets installed for MU.


A side (off-topic) issue:

I don't think you ever mentioned which version of Windows the client is
using. If it is Windows XP, mainstream support is dying next year
(http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223). I still use WinXP.
I don't know what Microsoft will leave on their WU/MU site to obtain
updates for WinXP. In case I need to do another rebuild (rather than
rely on restoring from image backups), I'm using WSUS Offline to
download all updates for legacy products (Windows XP & Office 2003) so I
have them in a local updater to reapply when needed.

http://www.wsusoffline.net/
http://blogging.cwl.cc/2013/01/automating-windows-updates-with-wsus-offline-update.html

If you have clients that will continue using Windows XP even after
Microsoft drops mainstream support for it (since extended support is
pricey) then you might want to be accumulating the updates for Windows
XP and have them locally available. When I last ran it about a week
ago, it is currently at 1462 files occupying 4.41 GB.

[VanguardLH]

Bill Stanton wrote:

> Doesn't a re-boot clear out any orphans?

Why would it? Windows isn't managing those files. Outlook is. I
stated earlier:

The Outlook secure temporary folder's content doesn't change because
of unloading Outlook or rebooting Windows. Whatever is in there will
still be in there after a reboot. It is *Outlook* that is supposed to
empty the temp files from this folder; however, if Outlook crashes or
it somehow gets disconnected from those temp files, the temp files
just continue to linger in that folder until YOU flush them out.

On exit, Outlook tries to delete its own temp files from that folder.
It can't if some other process has an open handle on that file. Windows
isn't going to delete those files anymore than it would delete your
documents. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if users had an app
create files that a reboot of Windows would destroy. You might know you
don't want the files anymore but Windows won't.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817878

They don't explain the fixes mentioned here. Windows can't be expected
to be yanking away data files. Maybe they figured if Outlook was
loading that it should purge its own temp folder. If it wasn't running
then an assumption could be that any attachments opened within a prior
instance of Outlook are no longer being viewed and Outlook can go ahead
and purge its temp folder. Of course, that doesn't preclude that you
might still be viewing the attachment (the file in the temp folder) when
you next load Outlook but then Outlook can probably only delete files in
its temp folder that don't currently have an open file handle on them.
That would mean if you were viewing a file that Outlook couldn't delete
it but it could delete out the other orphaned files in its temp folder.
Again, they don't eludicate on what their "fixes" do.

[VanguardLH]

VanguardLH wrote:

> Make sure the client has migrated from WU to MU. The user has to
> elect to replace WU with MU; else, they're stuck with WU and can't
> use the Office Update site that no longer exists.

When visiting the WU site, it shows "Windows" and Windows Update" at the
upper right of the page. I don't think the MU update is listed in the
normal updates. On the old WU page, there is a navbar with:

Windows Family - Windows Marketplace - Office Family - Microsoft Update

Once you upgrade from Windows Update to Microsoft Update, the page will
have "Microsoft" and "Microsoft Update" at the upper right and there
won't be the navbar anymore.

To migrate, and while on the old WU page, click on "Microsoft Update" in
the navbar and install the MU client. After installation is complete
and in the Start menu, you'll notice the old "Windows Update" shortcut
(runs wupdmgr.exe, little world icon) is now accompanied by the new
"Microsoft Update" shortcut (runs rundll32.exe muweb.dll,LaunchMUSite,
terminal with a blue down-arrow icon). Both will now take you to the
Microsoft Update site (so you can delete the duplicative old WU icon).

[Bill Stanton]

On 03/13/2013 12:19 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

With having "opened" the psd attachment, I looked for the temporary
folder per the Registry to see what was stored but the folder didn't
even exist. I check the Registry again and refreshed the tree, but
the folder that the Registry specifies didn't exist.

While the previewer did open, it was empty. My guess at this point is
that "Open" perhaps implies that Adobe PhotoShop be installed.

[VanguardLH]

Bill Stanton wrote:

> With having "opened" the psd attachment, I looked for the temporary
> folder per the Registry to see what was stored but the folder didn't
> even exist. I check the Registry again and refreshed the tree, but
> the folder that the Registry specifies didn't exist.
>
> While the previewer did open, it was empty. My guess at this point is
> that "Open" perhaps implies that Adobe PhotoShop be installed.

You'll need to configure Windows Explorer to show hidden and system
files.

You might find further help and some cleanup utilities to handle the
Outlook's secure temporary folder:

http://www.google.com/#output=search&q=outlook%20empty%20temporary%20secure%20folder

Since PSD is not a filetype for which Outlook has an embedded viewer,
and external viewer must be used.