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A friend of mine sent me a link to an iTunes song he thought I’d like. Of course I was unable to open it because it came delivered as an attachment. (Cue scary music.) Microsoft thinks that I can’t possibly be trusted to not open some flesh-eating virus, so by default Outlook blocks everything. It’s usually one of the first things I “fix” when I get a new computer. Here’s how to do it …

Open Regedit.
(Click “Start”, then “Run”, then type, “regedit” without the quotes.)
Navigate your way to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
then:
­Software­
then:
Microsoft
then:
­Office
then:
­11.0 (or 9 or 10 if you’re using an older version of Outlook)
then:
­Outlook
then:
­Security
(Whew!)
Now add a new String named “Level1Remove”.
Enter the extensions of the file types you want to be able to open in a comma-delimited list. So if you want to be able to open swf files and exe files and url files, you’d type: “swf, exe, url” (without the quotes).

On some versions of Windows and / or some versions of Outlook you must type a period before each extension, like so: “.swf, .exe, .url”.

Close regedit.
Restart Outlook.
Open what you want.

Note to mom: You really should never open an exe file in an email under any circumstances ever never ever never.