ajlayne wrote:
In Outlook, I changed the setting for how the mail sent to each typoe to resolve the issue. I created one email per setting and addressed to both people on their corporate exchange account (same server for both) and their gmail accounts. This is where the confusion arose since one phone receives fine and the other doesn't. I used Gmail as an alternate mail client with the same result.
So basically I used two different clients each time sending to four addresses two are located on each phone. Phone A always receives a winmail.dat file no matter which client or email address is used. Phone B always receives the attachment in it's correct format.
I took it a step further and used the phones to test sending. Even if I use Phone A to send to the other account on Phone A, winmail.dat is received. If done from Phone B to Phone A, Phone A winmail.dat persists. Phone A to Phone B correct format is received. I'm thinking there is a setting somewhere on Phone A I'm not aware of that was somehow changed since it is not mail client dependant nor recipient mail server dependant based on the testing results.
This is a Microsoft Windows setting with Microsoft Outlook or within the Exchange Server gateway in general. These winmail.dat files have been arriving on Linux, BSD, OS X, Tru64 Unix, ULTRIX, Solaris and many other servers for many years, too — unfortunately, everybody that's using non-Microsoft clients and tools encounters these files from time to time. The winmail.dat is a Windows Mail data file, after all.
If the mail client or if the mail server gateway sends a mail message to an iOS device — or many other "foreign" mail clients — that involves a winmail.dat file generated by the sending client or generated by the originating mail server gateway, then iOS will show the winmail.dat file. Like many other mail clients, the iOS mail client does not decode, process nor create these winmail.dat files. (Most clients simply treat these winmail.dat files as an arbitrary attachment on the message.)
Send the same messages to the same email addresses and read those messages via another mail client — one that doesn't have winmail.dat support — and you'll see the exact same behavior; a wad of attached winmail.dat data.
From Microsoft: How to Prevent the Winmail.dat File from Being Sent to Internet Users. In short, either the Outlook client settings or the Exchange Server (IMC) settings will need to be changed here.
