Stationery used on XP machines

Stationery works fine on W2k, not on XP

[mapie]

I have some clients that I create stationery for, to use in Outlook and Outlook Express. It all worked well for all of them, until some of them moved to Windows XP. The problem is that the background image will not 'stay put', so to speak. I googled and asked around, but no go. I think it may have to do with something that XP does differently, because I checked the code. The background image will not be 'converted' to a 'cid-image', so it's not an independant file, instead it will continue to point to a file in the stationery folder. If someone receives that stationery and does not have the file (image), the stationery will not function. I tried using the send/nosend option, but it didn't change a thing.
Do you have an idea of the reason, and do you know how to resolve that problem? I am losing clients... Okay, I am not a big business, I actually am self-employed and struggling, but stil...
Thanks for thinking about it and I hope for a reply!

[bulldog]

Are you sending the emails as HTML or Rich Text?

[vkaryl]

Seems odd.... before I switched to IncrediMail, I regularly used OE with stationery from all over the web (thousands of free stationery sites out there!), using XP, sending to friends and relatives with same, none of us had any problems.

Just now went back to OE to check before posting this: still works just fine, my daughter just replied from her machine with XP, using a completely different stationery! Both of us saw each other's fancy stuff (including fonts not on our machines!) just fine.

I don't know what could be causing the problem, unless it's some setting in your clients' Internet Options (which while it doesn't SOUND like it should matter, will for instance preclude display of wallpaper on your desktop if you have Show Pictures disabled in the Advanced Tab.... must be something to do with the IE being so tightly meshed in the OS).

[mapie]

Thank you both for the reply.
Reply to Bulldog: yes, they are sending using HTML. So that should be okay.
Reply to VKaryl: Hm... But do you both have those stationeries on your machines, or do you have all different stationeries? Because if one client sends me her mail, I can see it if it's in my stationery folder.
This is getting so annoying and strange! I really would like to have an XP machine here, just to test stationery functions! I shall try to find out some more about their internet settings. You just never know.
Thanks a lot for the replies, I hope we can find out what the problem is, I have been hearing it for almost 7 months now and I can't for the life of me find out what's wrong. Those people all have XP. Others on 98 and 2000 don't have the problem. I dread the future... :o)

[vkaryl]

Hi mapie -

Just checked with my daughter: the one I used was not one she has on her machine nor was the one she used one I had (not unusual with so many of them out there), so not sure where that leads. My cousin as well, before SHE migrated to IM, used to send a different one every time, sometimes a dozen times a day (99% of which weren't on my machine either!) when I was trying to sort out a machine problem for her.

It's pretty odd, all right.

[Added: did you check with the XP folks to make sure they didn't have any funky settings in Internet Options?]

[mapie]

Well, the two that I am staying in touch with at the moment are gone. The first has gone to his parents for a few days, and the second is gone for the night and, frankly, a horror to find out things from, she tells everyone she's a computerblonde so I dread trying to get more info from her. But... I shall go to her (and see him) in a few days. So... could you be so kind as to tell me what your internet settings are? Mine have always been the same (and I am being accused of being paranoid).
The strange thing is that when I am receiving stationery that I do not have, I can't see it. When I check the code, I find out that the imgage.jpg has not been converted to a 'cid'-image. Here's what I mean:

Creating email in Outlook/O.Express on W2000:
BODY style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #b3b3d5" background=logo.jpg leftMargin=5
topMargin=5

When saving/sending that I get (example from OE):
BODY style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #b3b3d5"
background=3Dcid:000401c49119$8cb1f7e0$dcdd3950@visioenen leftMargin=5 topMargin=5

When I receive email from one of the XP'ers:
BODY style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #93c1d0" leftMargin=5
background=logo.jpg topMargin=5

So on the XP machine, something must have gone wrong, it didn't convert it to a 'cid version' which is being used in the dbx-file that OE (Outlook too) creates and which is a dynamic file with all that info, here's what is in the dbx file:

background=3Dcid:000401c49119$8cb1f7e0$dcdd3950@visioenen.

So... I really hope to get this figured out. And I am very very happy with the replies. That makes me feel I am not alone in this hard world ;-)
Mapie.

[slygrrl22]

I am having a similar problem & I am using XP: for some reason when i create a stationery html file with images linked externally from another website, when i send the email with the stationery, it attaches the images. this clogs up people's emails, and can be very annoying. did you ever solve your problem, cuz it may help me with mine?

[Jedi Vampire Coffee]

The reason for these problems is simple: when Microsoft made XP they didnt put backward compatibility in - hence why programs made BEFORE XP have many, many problems with the OS. However, Microsoft tried to cover their tracks by including the "Compatibility Settings" tab, which is supposed to run programs in the same way that older OS's ran them. (And, for a few programs, it works!). I have XP and the same problem both with this program and many others; being both a programmer and a hardcore gamer it's not ideal - wihch is why i'd appreciate solutions to this problem WITHOUT downloading a bloody patch, which is all XP ever asks me to do;

'Windows cannot run this program. Would you like to download a patch from microsoft that will fix this error?'

NO, I don't. But it doesn't get the message.

[mapie]

No, I haven't solved the problem yet. I think the attaching of the background could have to do with people receiving it on the Mac, this is what happens to me with some people on older Macs.
I discovered something strange, completely by accident.
A few days ago, I was writing an email but since I was busy, I absentmindedly shut down Outlook while checking other things, and then went back to the email that was still on the screen. I wrote some more and sent it. Lo and behold: When I opened Outlook to see if the message had been sent (because if Outlook is shut down that will sometimes cause the email to disappear) I found it in the sent items box. But... without stationery...
So... maybe it's something to do with Outlook running something that handles the including of the stationery, and this process being handled differently on XP? I have no idea. But I did find one person who sent me an email with stationery I sent to him, using XP, and I got the stationery back in the email just fine. So there is hope.

[slygrrl22]

so what is happening then is that when companies send html emails w/images & all that, they are composing & sending it on an operating system other than XP? If that's the case, I dont think I can change operating systems, but at least I'd know why. Bummer!

[mapie]

Well, every email I sent to people using Outlook Express for Mac are EITHER not getting the stationery at all and all the embedded images, such as, for instance, smilies, will end up as attachments (but when replying the stationery will end up as an attachment), OR they won't even get the stationery: it will end up as an attachment. This is a major bummer. Windows uses vbs-scripts that handle the email keeping the stationery, I heard. But I am not a programmer and can't tell you the details.
On a Mac, there's the program called 'Entourage'. This is a Microsoft product, too. This does handle stationery well. But it's expensive.
And then there's Thunderbird for the Mac (starting at OSX), that does stationery another way but at least you're able to use stationery. For older OS's: Netscape mail composer (so you have to download the whole browser...)does it okay, I am told.
But I do think this is all very annoying. People do like 'fun email' (HTML). And yes, this is something that 'baddies' prey on. It poses more risks to the user. But I think that it should all be able to go smoothly from one OS to another where email encoding is concerned. I don't understand why things have to be so complicated and incompatible.