Tip of the day: Allow Outlook to send and receive URLs

Internet Explorer has a very cool feature. When you find a page you like, you can click File, Send, Link by E-mail to open a new e-mail message with your link included as an attachment and as text.

Unfortunately, someone forgot to send the memo to the folks who designed Outlook. In their zeal to block dangerous attachments (a campaign that has been amazingly effective), they added shortcuts ending with the .URL extension to the list of unsafe attachments. That means when you try to send a link from Internet Explorer using any version of Outlook since Outlook 2000 SP3, you get an error message instead of a usable message.

The solution? Take your pick of three workarounds:

1. Switch browsers. Firefox and Maxthon are smarter when it comes to sending links.
2. Edit the Registry. Run Regedit.exe and find the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security (that’s for Outlook 2003; the key will have a different version number for Office XP or Office 2000). Under that key, add a new String value, name it Level1Remove, and fill in the value as url. Restart Outlook and your URL-sending capability is restored.
3. Uncomfortable with hacking the Registry? Get Ken Slovak’s free Attachment Options add-in for Outlook. It adds a new tab to the Tools, Options dialog box, giving you the freedom to decide which attachments are blocked and which are allowed.