Pepper051198
asked on
Sending EXE email attachments from a Mac
Is there a way to send an .EXE file as an email attachment from Eudora Pro 3.1 on a Mac to a Windows user, so that it is not BinHexed. If I turn BinHex off in Eudora, it crashes when the attachment is sent. I have tried it with every combination. If the Windows user has the nous to un-binhex the attachment, then it is OK, but in my experience, this is not always the case. The EXE file is just a self expanding ZIP file that contains a number of files within folders. It needs to be self expanding because many Windows users do not have WinZip or PKZip (true), and Stuffit Expander for Windows truncates long file names from within the Zip file (they don't have this either).
Did you create the selfextracting exe on the Macintosh. If so this would be a Macintosh application which will never run on a a PC. Of not use uuencode and send this file to the PC.
ASKER
You can't create self-extracting exe files on the Macintosh. Using UUencode does not work, and produces an error message under Windows saying that the EXE file is bad. At least using BinHex encoding, the file can be un-BinHexed with Stuffit Expander for Windows or WinZip. Any more takers?
Hi Pepper,
Did you tried to compress this file with ZipIt for mac?, and to send this .exe file with Netscape?
Did you tried to compress this file with ZipIt for mac?, and to send this .exe file with Netscape?
ASKER
ZipIt for Mac cannot create self expanding archives. This can only be done with WinZip or similar under Windows. Any more suggestions....please??
You *must* use some sort of encoding before sending the file, e-mail can only carry ASCII characters.
Eudora Pro 3.1 supports the use of uuencoding as well as Binhexing. Most Windows E-mail clients understand uuencoding.
In the menu bar, go to Special -> Settings... then select the uuencode option. You can also do this within the message window. After dragging the attachment to the message window, one of the boxes in the upper left hand corner is the encoding option box. You can select uudecode on a per message basis with this method.
Eudora Pro 3.1 supports the use of uuencoding as well as Binhexing. Most Windows E-mail clients understand uuencoding.
In the menu bar, go to Special -> Settings... then select the uuencode option. You can also do this within the message window. After dragging the attachment to the message window, one of the boxes in the upper left hand corner is the encoding option box. You can select uudecode on a per message basis with this method.
ASKER
This answer is the same as the first suggestion from RBR. Uuencoding and email message with an EXE attachment from Eudora Pro results in an un-usable attachment when the recipient is using Windows. What I am after is a sending method that results in the Windows user receiving a non-corrupted EXE file.
Some users are just retarded and cannot be trained. This is not your fault. It has been my experience that the majority of windows users fall into this catagory. The workaround is to upload the file to web space and give them the url. The mentally challenged wintel users can then download the uncorrupted file. If this method fails, you have adequate proof of said retardation and must proceed to plan B.
Plan B - RTFM:
Tell the challenged user to Read The ******* Manual. This always goes over big and must, therefore, be put rather delicately. It helps to know what web browser the source of your frustration is using so you can tell them where to look for the Help file.
This is a common problem and I have not yet learned how to defend against the overwhelming urge to kill the idiot I am trying to help.
Good Luck
Plan B - RTFM:
Tell the challenged user to Read The ******* Manual. This always goes over big and must, therefore, be put rather delicately. It helps to know what web browser the source of your frustration is using so you can tell them where to look for the Help file.
This is a common problem and I have not yet learned how to defend against the overwhelming urge to kill the idiot I am trying to help.
Good Luck
ASKER
I suspected this already, though it's nice to have it confirmed. Surely it must be possible? How come they can download an EXE file though not receive one as an email attachment??
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It should be noted that MIME encoding is base64 and is done by the email application of the sender. The recipient can try to decode the MIME attatchment with a base64 decoder (there are several subtle differences among the various encoding schemes). The reason that I originally suggested to put the file on web space is that the files live in ascii or raw formats only on the web server. Since there are no differences in ascii or raw formats (everyone follows the standard) there is no decoding fiasco as with the MIME format (which is not as well entrenched as a standard).
ASKER
Sending from Netscape mail seems to be the answer, for both .EXE and .ZIP file attachments. Thanks to The Hub!