I have a client who is receiveing via email a Word document, it is originally being sent from Word on a Mac. When you double click on the document in Outlook 98 it prompts you with a 'Opening mail attachement' dialog box stating that the file is a *.doc.bin and it does not recognize it. If I choose to open it with Word, it opens the file with a lot a ASCII Charachters that are not part of the Document. If I save the attachement to the system and rename it, removing the .bin it still opens with the broken ascii charachters. If the message was sent to someone with Outook 2000, and double clicks on the attachement, it opens right up. It opens fine with a system that has Outlook 2000 but not Office 2000. What component in outlook 2000 is responsible for this, and can it be added to Outlook 98 install. The user stated that this did not happen before, and when she recieved a new computer it started. The new computer has a different image then it, both systems were NT4 though. Any suggestions? I have not been able to find anything on Microsofts support site.

Its because it is coming from a format from MAC and not PC. You will just need to get a converter for your word and apply it to be able to translate between the 2 formats. Outlook 2000 has the converter for the MAC but Outlook 98 does not. GO to microsoft's site and look for a converter. But you can upgrade your 98 to 2000 if that is what you want to do. Your clients old computer had the added support installed in your outlook 98 but when they switched to the new its new install where you need to readd the support. Here is link to download some patches for office 97.Download SR-2b is the main one. http://search.officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/default.asp?Product=Word&SortBy=Date&SortOrder=d&Version=9798&Type=U hope this helps keep posting JJ

We are running Outlook 98 with Service pack 2, I went throught that list and couldnt seem to find anything that related to Outlook 98 being able to open word docs sent from a Mac. I searched through all the office97 options and the outlook 98 options. Is there a specific one that you know of that I might have missed. The client said she was able to open it at one time, you mentioned that maybe she had a third party app installed that maybe did this inside of outlook? Do you know what app might do that? Thanks again... Matus

The issue is not with Outlook 98 but with your Word. Outlook only see the attachment that comes through. Outlook uses which ever application to open which ever file you are trying to open. Have you tried to reinstall word on your clients machine and use custom setup? Then select everything to be installed if not already. If this doesn't work you can just upgrade your Word 97 to Word 2000 if you have this. Try this and let me know. Keep posting JJ

Well, we have quite a bit of machines with Outlook98 and Office 97, none of which can open this document. I have tried on two other machines that both have outlook 2000 and the document opens right up. One of those machines has Office 2000 as well, but the other one is running office 97 and outlook 2000. The only thing that is different is Outlook 2000 as opposed to Outlook 98. Which makes me think that there is some component inside of outlook that enables it to recognize and/or decode this .bin attachment. I will try doing a reinstall of office 97 on my desktop and post the results... Thanks Matus

Just try to upgrade your word 97 to word 2000 and see if that works? JJ

Well, I found a fix for it, it is a registry key... [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Mac File Types] "MSWD:W8BN"=".doc" the machines had "MSWD:W6BN"=".doc" in them, but not the "W8BN". As I understand this defines Word v8 files from mac's with the Bin extension as *.doc's. Thanks for all your input Matus