XFOR: UUENCODED Sections Are Not Decoded into Attachments

• Microsoft Exchange Server, version 5.0

SYMPTOMS

When you receive messages from the Internet that contain UUencoded sections, these UUencoded sections may appear as attachments in the message body. At other times, these sections will be left as UUencoded text within the message and will require manual decoding before you can view them.

CAUSE

The above behaviour is caused when a UUencoded section is embedded within a MIME body part specified as text/plain.

STATUS

This behaviour is by design. Any lines of text within a text/plain MIME body part are treated as text and not subject to further processing. If UUencoded sections are to be decoded, they should not be sent within text/plain MIME body parts. The attachments should be MIME encoded instead.

MORE INFORMATION

This behaviour was not seen in previous versions of Microsoft Exchange Server because versions prior to 5.0 incorrectly processed the text/plain section of a MIME body part and converted the UUencoded section to an attachment. This action violated RFC-1522 concerning the decoding of a MIME-encoded message.