XCLN: Exchange 3.x Client Cannot Fully Display or Save Large Message Bodies (166500)

SYMPTOMS

The Microsoft Exchange Windows 3.x client cannot fully display, or save to a disk file, messages containing large bodies of text. When you attempt to read such a message, the following error message appears:

You've exceeded the maximum amount of text.

Attempts to forward or reply to the message will result in a truncated message being delivered to the recipient, and when sending, produces the following error messages:

The object could not be inserted. The action could not be completed.

The object could not be inserted. The message body is full. To avoid
overwriting the original text, the original message header may be only
partially added.

When you select the message to highlight it, click Save As, and specify "text" and a target filename, the process is completed without error. However, the message content in the target file is truncated.

CAUSE

The Microsoft Exchange Windows 3.x client uses a 16-bit implementation of the RichEdit control (Riched.dll) for manipulating the contents of the MAPI property, PR_BODY, which includes the body text of the message. The Windows 3.x client RichEdit control has a limit of holding a maximum of 65,535 hard line breaks.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, do one of the following:

Use the Microsoft Exchange Windows 95 client, the Microsoft Exchange Windows NT client, or the Microsoft Outlook client to view messages with large text bodies.

-or-
Use a POP3 client accessing a computer running Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 configured to support POP3 mail retrieval. The POP3 client can retrieve the message in full. This is true of the POP3 mail client included with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 for Windows 3.x.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Windows 3.x client version 4.0. We are currently researching this problem and will post more information here in the Microsoft Knowledge base as it becomes available.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Windows 3.x client 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

MORE INFORMATION

With the fix applied, a modification is made to WMSUI.DLL so that it reports the following error Microsoft when you a Save a message as text and the message has a large text body that exceeds the RICHEDIT limit:

The item(s) could not be saved. You've exceeded the maximum amount of text.

Although this doesn't address the core problem, it does ensure that you are informed of the problem when you save a large message as text.