XCON: Problems with Attachments Using Boldon James Encoding (176453)

SYMPTOMS

When you send a message that contains an attachment over a 1984 X.400 connection to a foreign message transfer agent (MTA) that uses Boldon James manifest encoding, the attachment name may not appear in the message when it is received. The attachment itself is transferred successfully, but the attachment's name, date, and time are not. When you receive a message over this connection, the attachment name may be changed to Att.dat or a similar generic name.

CAUSE

By default, Microsoft Exchange Server does not create Boldon James manifests for attachments. When you send a message that contains an attachment over an X.400 connection that uses this type of encoding, information about the attachment is not encoded into a manifest. Therefore, the foreign MTA does not receive this information.

In addition, by default, Microsoft Exchange Server does not decode and apply attachment information in Boldon James manifests when receiving messages from foreign MTAs. As a result, attachment names may be changed to generic names such as Att.dat.

STATUS

This is a design limitation of the 1984 X.400 specification that Boldon James manifest encoding is designed to overcome. Although the creation and decoding of manifests are not officially supported by the X.400 specification, Microsoft has enhanced the Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 MTA to support this feature.

This feature is included 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

The 1984 X.400 specification provides poor support for encoding attachment information, resulting in multiple proprietary attachment encoding schemes. Boldon James manifest encoding is a method of encoding attachments in which an additional attachment, referred to as a manifest, is included with the message. The manifest provides information about the original attachment, including the attachment name.