.doc files cannot be displayed within the body of an e-mail. .doc[x]
files are not HTML files. They would have to be attachments. You would
have to "follow" by opening or saving the attachment. In Hotmail's
webmail client UI, you click on the attachment and are asked if you want
to open or save the file. Opening the file merely means to download a
temp copy and then using whatever application is associated with the
filetype (or content type). Since you have Word installed, clicking on
the attachment in the webmail client and selecting Open should have
opened that temp copy of the downloaded document into Word, not as some
scrambled mess in IE8.
Something is screwy in your setup. I just sent an e-mail to myself that
had an attached .docx file. I had to go find one since I'm still using
Office XP but have installed the compatibility pack that provide support
for .docx format. If I open that .docx file with a zip utility, yep, it
is a zip archive. When I went into Hotmail's webmail client and clicked
on the .docx attachment in the test e-mail, my choices were to Open or
Save (or Cancel). If saving, obviously I could rename the file to
anything I want and would be opening the file based on its filetype
association (to Word). So I'll assume you clicked on Open.
When I clicked on Open, a temp copy got downloaded so it could be loaded
into Word. The .docx file did not open in Windows Explorer as a .zip
archive folder. It opened in Word. I do have the option "Open files
based on content, not on filetype" enabled in my Internet zone yet that
.docx attachment, when I selected Open, loaded up okay in Word.
Seems like something else is interfering with the opening of .docx files
when downloaded through IE. Have you tried running IE8 in its no
add-ons mode to make sure some add-on isn't altering the behavior of IE?
If that doesn't help, reboot into Windows's Safe Mode (with networking)
and retest.
What zip archival utility did you install, or did you not install any
and are just using the zipfldr.dll support included in Windows? I'm
using 7-Zip and it doesn't interfere with opening .docx files via links
from web pages (i.e., downloading and opening them in Word). Something
is affected IE8's ability to pass the document to the appropriate
filetype handler. If the filetype association defined in Windows gets
used then the .docx file opens in Word (and perhaps why you see it
working in FF since it downloads the file and then uses whatever
filetype handler is defined in Windows). It almost seems that you have
something installed in IE8 that intercepts the download and it handles
the zip file (which is what is a docx file) before or instead of giving
it to the filetype associated handler defined in Windows.
Under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.docx, what is the value for "Content Type"? Is
it the following?
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Under the PropertyHandler subkey, what is the class ID of the handler?
Is it "{993BE281-6695-4BA5-8A2A-7AACBFAAB69E}"? The handler for that
class ID is defined under:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{993BE281-6695-4BA5-8A2A-7AACBFAAB69E}
Is the InprocServer32 pointing at the following file?
C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\MICROS~1\OFFICE12\msoshext.dll
(which is "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Office12)
I'm still using Office XP whose files are under ...\Office 10\... but
the compatibility pack that installed the docx filetype handler are
Office 12 (Office 2007) files.