posted
A little off topic here I guess, but does anyone know what program produces a .dat extension. It is a text file and I can't seem to find any one who knows what program uses this extension.
Thanks for any help.
-------------------- Robert Graham Grahamsville Signs 1120 E McReavy Road Union, Washington 98592 360-898-2260 Fax 360-898-2262 e-mail:gvs@hctc.com Posts: 135 | From: Union,Washington - USA | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote: Various programs use this extension; too many to list individually. Take clues from the location of the file as a possible pointer to exactly which program is producing the file. The file's date and time can also help if you know which programs you were running when the file was written.
From a file extension website.
-------------------- Kimberly Zanetti Purcell www.amethystProductivity.com Folsom, CA email: Kimberly@AmethystProductivity.com
“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.” AA Milne Posts: 3722 | From: Folsom, CA | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
What I found thru Google: .dat Data file. A basic flat file of data, almost entirely free of structure. Can be opened by many software applications including text editor programs. (However when a .dat file exceeds a few megabytes in size, it may be too big for a text editor to open.)
DAT is the file extension for Microsoft Exchange Server v 5.0. it is also the file extension for the WordPerfect Merge Data.
(From a computer forum): "The ".DAT" extension is often used to indicate a file containing arbitrary "data." Some applications that have a format of their own choosing simply use .DAT. This means that as a user, you must have your own way to figure out how to open the file. There is no single way to open or view a .DAT file since there can many different types of content. The best way is to ask whoever gave you the file what application should be used to open it.
Failing that, there are some applications that can open almost any file. For example, on most Windows OSs, NotePad can be used to look at any type of file. If you try to open the file in NotePad, you might see something recognizable. For example, if you open a file that is really a .PDF file in NotePad, you might see the string "%PDF" near the beginning of the file. What you see will probably be mostly junk, but it might give you a hint about what's there."
(FROM A HELP SECTION OF A SCHOOL WEBSITE): Problems forming attachments: The Winmail.dat dilemma
This document adapted (with permission) from a Web page maintained by Dr. Julia Benson-Slaughter.
Email users sometimes call the help desk for assistance opening email messages with a strange file attached, called winmail.dat. When they attempt to open this file, either it can't be opened at all, or it contains "garbage" data. This problem typically happens when the sender uses Microsoft Outlook 97/2002/2003. These programs do not always follow established rules for transmitting attachments, and as a result, an attachment is transmitted in this not-very-useful .dat format.
Why does it happen?
The situation causing this is that people are using several different email client programs to receive, read, and send email. The most commonly used email client programs at Lehigh are Netscape, Mozilla, or IMP. Microsoft Outlook is used elsewhere. Unfortunately, Outlook does not "play nicely" with the other email programs -- and as a result, attachments are garbled in translation. This causes problems, not for the sender of the email, but the recipient, particularly when actual files are attached to messages.
When an Outlook user composes and sends a message using either Rich Text Format or HTML Format, Outlook generates a file, winmail.dat, and attaches it to the end of the message. Winmail.dat contains formatting information, in a human-unreadable form, that can be received and interpreted by other Outlook users, but it not universally readable by other email clients. Those of us on the receiving end with other mail clients, such as Mozilla Thunderbird, IMP, or Eudora, won't be able to use/view the attachments.
What can you do?
Fortunately someone has invested the time into a fix for this issue.
Save the winmail.dat file to the desktop or some location you can find on your computer. Go to http://www.biblet.com. Click on the link "Download WMDecode.zip" (look about halfway down the page) and follow the instructions to convert the winmail.dat file to the original format. If you do not want to use the program above, reply to the individual who sent you the offending email and ask that they re-send the message, with the attached files, as a plain text message, omitting any formatting.
If you are sending these winmail.dat files If someone emails you to complain that they couldn't read your attachments, or to ask what this "winmail.dat" file is that you sent them, chances are you sent this email using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express.
The simplest fix is to change your default sending mode in Outlook, thereby sending all email messages as plain text, by doing the following:
Select Tools->Options from the Outlook menu bar. Select the "Sending" tab in the dialog window, and locate the Mail Sending Format section of that tab. Select Plain Text Click the "OK" button.
Note that Lehigh University encourages the use of Netscape or Mozilla mail clients, for a variety of reasons. If you have additional questions, speak with your computing consultant or the help desk about your email needs.
Hope this helps.
-------------------- Tim Whitcher Adrian, MI Posts: 1546 | From: Adrian, MI | Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, if you do a search in your computer for *.dat, you may find that just about any or most of your programs may use dat files. They are used to store important data these programs usually need to operate. Usually, these are files you do NOT edit. (hope you don't think they are graphic files) Some are comprised of Machine-language symbols which no one can read anyway.
2 of the most important ones are used by Windows & make up the content of the Registry. They are User.dat & System.dat. DON'T delete, or attempt to change, those files. If you do, your computer won't start; unless you have a good, & hopefully current, backup.
-------------------- Bill Cosharek Bill Cosharek Signs N.Huntingdon,Pa
bcosharek@juno.com Posts: 703 | From: N.Huntingdon, Pa, USA | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
The most common occurance of a .dat file is when a file created on a Macintosh is sent over the internet and received by a PC. The file gets split into two parts: One is the resource fork and one is the data fork which is the way Mac's handle files.
-------------------- Fred Weiss Allied Computer Graphics, Inc. 4620 Lake Worth Road Lake Worth, FL 33463 561 649-6300 allcompu@allcompu.com Posts: 427 | From: Lake Worth, Florida | Registered: Feb 2003
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