I have a small problem that still has me stumped after some Google searching. One of my users forwarded me a spam that got through our spam filters (one of those image spams) asking if we could do anything about it. The spam filtering service asked me to forward just the headers of the message but not the entire message so it wouldn’t get blocked by their spam filter (like it did the first time I forwarded it). Sounds easy, right? Just open the attached message that was forwarded to me, and click View->Options… to get the internet headers. But they’re blank. Why? Well, I don’t know, Outlook decided that there were none, apparently.

This isn’t the first time this has happened; I tried the same thing with another email that had spam issues and Outlook also thought the attached email had no headers, even though it came from the internet (rather than being originated in Exchange) and certainly did have headers. I even managed to get that one forwarded through to the anti-spam support, and they were able to find the problem; in the headers. So I know the headers are there, since they will get forwarded with the message again. But how can I view them? Anyone with a working answer will be greatly appreciated with a reward of me posting his or her name in a new post thanking them for the solution :-)

I’m using Outlook 2003 connected to Exchange 2003 Standard, and my user is running the same, and forwarded the original spam to me “as an attachment.” Google does turn up plenty of results from my searches, but they all reference how to view the internet headers of a regular message, not one attached to a forwarded email.