[stanley herby]

Hi I have for sometime now been trying to find out why I can't open Atto.dat files in the form of attachments emailed to me. The attachments are in fact Photos from my family in Australia. When I attempt to open Photo Gallery opens with the message "can't open file format is not supported or you don't have the latest updates". I run Windows Vista Home Premium, my broadband is with Tiscali and I have Windows, Works & Word 2007. The only thing I can think of is that I have not configured Outlook as I was worried it may conflict with my Tiscali Email account. I do hope someone can help me. Thank you

[Augie65]

.dat files are data files. You should have photos sent in .jpeg format to open in your photo program.

[TheOutcaste]

Welcome to TSG!
ATT????.Dat (Numbered attachment data) files are created by Outlook for attachments when Outlook is not configured properly (I'm don't know what that is though). Is you family sending these as actual attachments, or are the inserting them into an email? If the latter, they may be in a format that Outlook can't understand, so instead of placing them "inline" they get wrapped into an Attachment.dat file. It they are attaching photos that are in a RAW format (the camera's internal format) Outlook may not know what to do with them either.

Sounds like some re-configuring on the sending end needs to be done, either in their mail client, or simply making sure the files are in JPG format.

You can use this online tool that might extract the files. There is a 5 MB limit, and you do have to upload the files to their server. I know nothing about the site, just found it on a search, so can't comment on their privacy policies or reputation:

http://www.winmaildat.com/

HTH

Jerry