XFOR: Custom Recipient Receives Rich Text Format Information Unexpectedly

ID: Q173713

The information in this article applies to:

SYMPTOMS

A Custom Recipient (CR) receives a message that includes Rich Text Format (RTF) information. This occurs even if Allow Rich Text Format is not selected in the Advanced tab of Properties for the CR. If the original message sent contained an attachment, the attachment may be received by non-Microsoft mail clients as an unreadable RTF attachment.


CAUSE

While expanding Distribution Lists and processing alternate recipients, the Microsoft Exchange Message Transfer Agent (MTA) did not preserve the CR property indicating whether it should receive RTF.


WORKAROUND

In the Microsoft Exchange Administrator program, change the Send Microsoft Exchange Rich Text Formatting option to NEVER in the Interoperability dialog box on the IMC Internet Mail property page (use the Specify Message Content by E-Mail Domain option if you want to restrict this option to individual domains).

For information about a client-side fix for this problem, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q169666 XADM: POP3 Users may not Receive an Attachment if Part of DL


STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server, version 5.0. This problem has been corrected in the latest U.S. Service Pack for Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.0. For information on obtaining the Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

S E R V P A C K

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.5. This problem has been corrected in the latest U.S. Service Pack for Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.5. For information on obtaining the Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):
S E R V P A C K


MORE INFORMATION

What the non-Microsoft client actually receives depends on:

Various clients will see inconsistent (in other words, this can vary when using the same client) results in their mail. If IMS/Internet Mail is set to MIME, a separate attachment is received at the client. If IMS/Internet Mail is set to UUENCODE, the attachment file may merge with the mail message body.

For more information regarding RTF information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q136204 XCLN: Sending Messages In Rich-Text Format
Upon inspection, it can be seen that these messages correspond to messages sent to a distribution list in which the CR is a member, or as a result of the CR being defined as an alternate recipient for a Microsoft Exchange mailbox. 


Keywords          : kbbug5.00 kbfix5.00.sp2 XFOR 
Version           : WinNT:5.0,5.5
Platform          : winnt 
Issue type        : kbbug

Last Reviewed: April 28, 1999