How to AutoReply with Email Message (instead of email as attachment)

I created an AutoResponder rule for Outlook Express using "Reply with MESSAGE ". I made the email message I wanted to reply with and saved it as a .eml. When the AutoResponder kicks in, it replys with the .eml message as an Attachment (the actual email body itself is blank). How can I get it to actually respond with the email message instead of simply attaching it to a blank email?

 

Sorry I'm flying blind here but I don't have OE around anywhere to test.

Did you set things up exactly as shown in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/267880

 

Yes I followed the rules in that guide, except instead of applying to All messages I have it applied to ones that have a specific subject title.

From what I've read it shouldn't be attaching a .eml in the reply, it should be opening it up and using it to reply. I can't seem to figure out how to get this to work!

 

Well, hopefully either someone will know or else some of the site regulars who use OE and like to tinker will try it and see if they can give further suggestions.

 

Well, I tried it with my Hotmail account several different ways and no matter how I did it, the message was never shown as an attachment when received in the Hotmail account. Also, unlike Christer's, the message was never shown as an attachment in my sent folder. It must be possible because it works for me. Only problem is, I don't really know where to go from here. I'll have to some snooping to see what I can come up with. Anybody else?

 

This is kind of wierd. As I said, I tried this several ways. I tried using both plain text and html as my default setting for sent emails. With both of these I tried using both a plain text file and an html file for the reply. I had four different emails sent to my Hotmail account and four of the same sitting in my sent folder in OE. None of them showed any attachment. The only thing I hadn't tried was using an .eml file for the reply. Decided to give it a try and this is where things got wierd. I sent an email from my Hotmail account to my ISP account just as before. Received it in OE, and a reply was sent back to the Hotmail account (using the .eml file). But.... when I looked at the reply in the Hotmail account it showed it as an attachment and to top it off, when I went back to the inbox in the Hotmail account 3 out of 4 of the previous test replies showed attachments also. They never did before. Now it gets even wierder. I had a look in my sent folder in OE and just as in the Hotmail account, all but one of test replies showed attachments (none of which did before). Also, I wasn't using OE to check the Hotmail account. I was checking and sending these right from the Hotmail website using IE. I've since deleted all the messages from both OE and Hotmail and tried it once using a text file for a reply and a second time using an eml file for a reply and this time neither of these shows as an attachment. Hmmm

 

OOPS!! Guess I sort of goofed. The last test I tried with the .eml file for the reply also showed up as an attached file in the reply. Guess I've done it so many different ways that I got mixed up as to what was what. Anyway, the eml file showed as an attachment but this time things didn't change with the previous file I sent. Wonder what was up with that?

Anyway, have either of the two of you tried using a text or html file for the reply message instead of an eml file? If not, give it a try and see if it works for you.

 

Yes thats definately strange...

Replying with an html file or a text file seems to work just fine, but with a .eml file it always seems to make it as an attachment.

If I have to I'll send emails using HTML.. is there any ways to make it so that an email can be read in HTML if its supported, or else revert to simple text if not supported?

 

None that I know of but these days most any email program will support html messages so unless the user has that feature turned off in the email program there should be no problem. Unless there's a reason you have to use html; why not just use a plain text file? It would certainly take care of that possible problem.