Hi Nancy, MIM is an extension for MIME (Multiple Internet Mail Extensions) compliant email attachments that aren't handled properly by the mail service. The protocol by which email is transferred is limited to what us propeller-heads refer to as '7-bit ASCII', which by it's simplest definition means 'plain text'. Binary files like pictures or executable files cannot be transmitted via 7-bit ASCII without first being encoded. Once encoded these files must be decoded on the other end in order to be useful. Most encoding formats (and there are many) identify themselves in the first few lines of code. The mail server or client on the receiving end must read this identity and 'decode' the file back to a binary format. When the mail sever or client fails to identify the encoding format or is incapable of decoding the file, you wind up with the binary file in it's encoded (7-bit ASCII) state. I believe your computer is trying to associate these attachments with 'America Online' which is known to apply a '.mim' extension to it's attachments. There are several decoding programs available but often they require a fair amount of intuition to identify the encoding format and apply the proper decode technique. The ideal solution is to have this handled automatically by your mail system. What do you use as a mail client? -RSW > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Sunday, October 25, 1998 6:15 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: WHITAKER-D Digest V98 #111 > > > Hello all! Hey, I am not too brainy where all this > cyberspace stuff is > concerned: Re the Whitaker digests of last week which you > had to download as > .mim files. My computer tells me that in order to open those > files, I have to > have something called "America.exe." - which evidently I > don't have. Is it > something I have to buy, or can it be downloaded from > somewhere on the web? > Or is it something I really have, and my computer is hiding > it somewhere? > Help! > Thanks, > Nancy Cason >