28th November 2001
A few weeks ago, I upgraded Windows on Oogie Boogie (the big, bad, beige beast who now belongs to Gretchen). As usual, I had to add all of my favorite shell extensions and shareware apps ASAP. Microsoft Office 2000 was the last in line; my copy was the release version, so I had to head to the Web to get SP1 (the first service pack). I was careful not to get SP2, as it comes with the dreaded Outlook E-mail Security update that halts EVERY type of questionable attachment. Oops. I inadvertently installed it (and there's no way to uninstall it). Time to do a little hacking! If this has happened to you, here's what you need to do. Find OUTLLIB.DLL and open it in any hexadecimal editor (I prefer UltraEdit). It's nothing but code, baby. Be sure to make a backup copy first! Now, do a Find for the first "URL" string. You should see it surrounded by other familiar file extensions, like ZIP, VBS, and SHS. Guess what you're going to do? That's right! Change "URL" to "LOL" - "ZIP" to "OMG" - "EXE" to "CJP" (or some other tri-lettered farcical aquatic ceremony). Save your changes and full access to those files in Outlook 2000 should now be restored.