How To Remove Opening Attachments Warning Message Dialog Box in Outlook 2007

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One of the most frequently noticed and a widely discussed issue in tech forums for Outlook 2007  is its Attachment Warning Message, and it’s more troublesome to solve if the user is using Windows Vista. The Annoyance of the user is as follows –

outlook-attachment-warning

“When double clicking on an attachment I get a message if I would like open or save the file. I would like to open it but I don’t want to answer this question again. There is an option which says “Always ask before opening this type of file” which I want to turn off but can’t since it is greyed out. I was able to turn this off on Windows XP but I cannot do this on Windows Vista.”

Here is The Solution to Remove  The  Opening Attachments Warning Message which always asks for opening a type of file For Windows 7 and Windows Vista

Since that option is a system wide change and not limited to the logged on user, you must perform this with Administrator rights. Since everything is loaded as a user in Windows Vista you must explicitly run Outlook as an administrator to change the option.

Warning Please perform the below steps only if your PC is running an Anti Virus Software which can check and scan email attachments for any viruses or trojans, coz as the warning above in the dialog box says that Do Not Trust Attachments from an unknown source,  so please be careful while opening attachments in emails especially from senders whom you don’t know.

Steps on How To Remove Opening Attachments Warning Message Dialog Box in Outlook 2007 under Windows 7

  • Close Outlook 2007 before you start
  • Click the Windows ‘Start’ Button
  • Click ‘All Programs
  • Right Click on ‘Microsoft Office Outlook 2007’ in the “Microsoft Office’ folder (as shown below)
  • Click on the Properties option

outlook2007_properties

  • After Clicking on Properties – Click the ‘Compatibility’ Tab (shown below)
  • Check the ‘Run this program as an administrator’ box
  • Click the ‘Apply’ button

outlook2007_compatibility

  • Restart Outlook 2007
  • You will get the following ‘User Account Control Warning

uac warning

  • Click ‘Yes’  –  Don’t worry, you won’t have to do this every time you start Outlook
  • Open an email with the attachment type (eg: .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pdf) you want to open in the future without this warning
  • Click on the attachment
  • You’ll get the same warning message as before, but, as you can see below, this time the ‘Always ask before opening this type of file‘ checkbox will not be grayed out
  • Uncheck the box and open the attachment

uncheck checkbox

  • Open other emails with each of the attachment types that you do not wish to receive this message for in the future (eg: xls, xlsx, doc, docx, pdf, ppt)
  • Similarly uncheck the ‘Always ask before opening this type of file‘ check box for each document type and open them.

From then on, you will no longer get the warning message when opening each of these types of attachments from within Outlook 2007 emails.

But, we are not quite finished. If you stopped here, you’d get the User Account Control Warning above every time you started Outlook 2007. To stop this from happening :

  • Close Office 2007 once again
  • Redo the first six steps above, but this time
  • Uncheck the ‘Run this program as an administrator’ box under the Compatibility Tab in the Office 2007 Properties box.
  • Click ‘Apply’

From then on Office will remember your attachment-type warning preferences without giving you the UAC warning every time you start Office 2007.

Steps on How To Remove Opening Attachments Warning Message Dialog Box in Outlook 2007 under Windows Vista

  1. Close Outlook 2007
  2. Right click on the shortcut you use to launch Outlook 2007
  3. Choose Run as Administrator
  4. Press Continue or provide the logon credentials for an Administrator
  5. Restart Outlook
  6. Open an email with the attachment of the type you want to be able to access without the annoying warning message
  7. Deselect the option “Always ask before opening this type of file”
  8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 with emails containing each of the various attachment types you wish to be able to access without the warning message
  9. Close Outlook
  10. Restart Outlook as normal (not in administrator mode)

From then on, you will no longer get the warning message when opening each of these types of attachments from within Outlook 2007 emails.

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Until Then…Happy Computing.

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18 comments

  1. Thank you, thank you, thank you I open probably 50 spreadsheets a day and this gets real annoying and such an easy solution

  2. Fantastic, easy to follow and very good that you followed it through (by resetting in order to prevent future warnings). Even my network guy didn’t know.. 🙁

  3. Thanks very much for a simple solution to an annoying problem, which i didn’t have before upgrading to Windows 7.

    Will save me time and irritation – I hate greyed-out options!

  4. Yeah, none of this worked for me on Windows 7. Tried it a few times, but the “Always ask” box was still greyed out, even when logged in as Administrator.

  5. This “fix” no longer works in Windows 7 – Office 2007. There is no checkbox option displayed and the dialogue box does not offer the option of opening the file. This is a major pain in the a$$ – typical MS deciding what’s best for all those stupid, ignorant users.

  6. Let me also add my thanks. I won’t even speculate why MS doesn’t address this annoying issue, but you made my day with your fix.

  7. On Windows 7, you should rather start the program with Ctrl+Shift+Enter after putting the focus on it: this way it will start the program with asking for administrator rights. This is a much simpler method to do the same without the need of multiple clicks.

  8. Still greyed out for me as well. Does anyone know the equivalent registry key so we could push it out to our organization?

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