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We are currently in the situation that we receive some E-Mails from our business partners containing inline attachments of the file types .doc(x) and .pdf with our Exchange Server.

Outlook does not show those files by default. I know there is a Exchange setting that tells Outlook to display inline attachments.
For those curious, it is Set-OrganizationConfig -ShowInlineAttachments:$true.

Before I apply that setting, I am curious to know whether I should even consider it. I do not want to implement a bad practice and I have the feeling that there is a reason this is $false by default. I rather educate our business partner.

Is showing E-Mail Inline Attachments in Exchange/Outlook a bad practice?

Edit

For clarification: Inline attachments ≠ automatic attachment preview.

In the following picture you see the difference between inline attachments and regular attachments. The first is disabled for Outlook clients in a domain environment by before stated Exchange setting.


(Source: http://blogs.mccombs.utexas.edu/the-most/2011/01/28/email-attachments-in-the-body-of-outlook-messages/)

Daniel
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1 Answers1

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PDFs == virus. I for one wouldn't allow it. docx is a different story because, while there are macros, by default Word (therefore Outlook's editor) doesn't allow them, but then again you may never know.

Even when you want to preview an attachment in Outlook you get a warning, because it essentially executes the file, for all intents and purposes.

MDMoore313
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  • Only if your PDF viewer allows automatic execution of code. Not everything that can display PDFs is as awful as Acrobat Reader. – mfinni Apr 14 '15 at 17:23
  • that's true, good point, but I think (could be wrong here) Outlook's default PDF viewer is Adobe Reader, should you have it installed. – MDMoore313 Apr 14 '15 at 17:25
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    It's whatever you have configured as the system handler for PDF, assuming it supports OLE or DDE or whatever the hell. – mfinni Apr 14 '15 at 17:54
  • yep, in addition if the OPs org doesn't force one, it'll be whatever the user has installed :-(, so maybe he could enable inline viewing w/ a forced viewer that doesn't automatic execute PDF code? – MDMoore313 Apr 14 '15 at 18:07
  • Thanks for your reply @BigHomie, but we are talking about different things here. I edited my question to clarify the term *inline attachment*. – Daniel Apr 15 '15 at 09:44