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"WinXP, IE 7, OE Freezes When Opening an Email with JPG Attachment"

4 May 2008

Recent system crash. Rebuild of Windows XP and reload of all Microsoft website updates and all my application programs.

Interesting problem. With Internet Explorer 7 installed, when I open an email using Outlook Express 6 (OE), if the email has a .jpg attachment, email will not fully open and OE freezes! Search of Microsoft provides no specific help other than possible email folder corruption. Follow procedures to fix corruption problem but turns out not to be a solution.

Uninstall IE 7 and no problem with OE?

More Internet searching. Not much available but possibility that my Adobe Photoshop 6.0 is not compatible with IE 7, OE 6 when I have Photoshop set as the default open program for jpg files! What? Been using Photoshop 6.0 for years without any problem. But as I have to do with a lot of computer software problems, run an experiment of uninstalling Photoshop.

No more problems with OE opening an email with jpg attachment.

Reinstall Photoshop and still no problems.

Bottom line is that I think I installed Photoshop on my system after the system crash before I had updated fully to IE 7. So it makes sense in a way and perhaps a lesson to me. Fully install OS and all available updates before installing applications.