How to Unblock Attachments in Microsoft Outlook 2007

Yesterday I was being very frustrated by Outlook blocking access to attachments. So, I thought that this would be a good post for the new month. How to unblock attachments in Outlook 2007!

Allowing executable extensions give you more freedom but less security (I've seen viruses pass AVs before). I would recommend allowing unsafe attachments just for a specific email, and undoing it after downloading the attachments. Of course make sure the email is from a trusted source and still treat it as if it's a virus by default (i.e. scan it, look for patterns in the email body, etc).

I'm sure you've seen before "Outlook blocked access to the following potentially unsafe attachments: xxx.exe". I found there's very little documentation out there on how to lower the security level or allow a file a know source sent you. You'll find below the registry hack to allow specific file types Outlook blocks by default. There's also a kb article about it and as the article mentions make sure you backup your registry before you start editing it.
Run -> regedit and go to :
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Security
1. Backup your registry first. Right click and select Export.
2. Add a new String Value called: Level1Remove

Level1Remove
1. Edit it and save the value data to the extension you wish to allow (add a semi-colon delimiter for multiple extensions).
Ex: .bat or .bat;.exe;.scr

1. Restart outlook (no need to restart your computer) !
Here is the KB for some further reading. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/829982

Enjoy your new freedom.