"The properties of the message have been changed" prompt when forwarding/replying in Outlook

Anonymous
2021-05-21T21:28:23+00:00

When users open a message in its own window that has a pdf attachment and replies or forwards the message; when they close the original window, outlook prompts "The properties of the message <email_subject> have been changed. Want to save your changes to this message?"

Steps to recreate this issue:

  • Message must have pdf or txt attachment
  • Open the original message in its own window
  • Reply-to or forward the message
  • Closing original message that was previously opened in its own window

Attempts to disable add-ins or running outlook in safe-mode do not resolve this issue.

Outlook | Windows | Classic Outlook for Windows | For home

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Anonymous
2021-06-16T08:16:59+00:00

Hi All，

First, apologize for the inconvenience caused by this problem in Outlook Client. Microsoft has realized this issue and the dedicated outlook teams are working on this problem to fix it. It is a known issue in the current Outlook Clients, and a fix will be released to Office version 2106 on 2021/6/17. For the affected users please navigate to Outlook Web App as temporary workaround and wait for the new fix release with some more patience, thanks. For more details, please refer to "The properties of the message have been changed" prompt when forwarding/replying in Outlook.

Thanks for your understanding and patience.

Best Regards,

Oliver

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-06-11T15:48:32+00:00

    I found another MS Article - not directly related to this - and so far it has resolved my issue (and I am still on the Click2Run version):

    ***

    Configure the Outlook client to use UTF-8 for the Preferred encoding for outgoing messages option. To do this, follow these steps:

    1. In Outlook, select File > Option > Advanced.
    2. In the International options section, set the Preferred encoding for outgoing messages option to UTF-8.
    3. Close Outlook and re-launch.

    ***

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-06-07T11:14:49+00:00

    I have compared the properties of a message before and after replying to it - when this problem occurs and found one potentially significant change:

    Image

    As seen here, messages arrive without an OutlookInternalVersion or OutlookVersion - then after replying to the message and saving - it has been populated.

    Any subsequent replies to messages in this conversation do not prompt to save changes.

    If anyone else wants to check this, here is the powershell I used.

    First, copy the email before you reply to it into an empty folder on disk and rename the msg file as Before.msg

    Then reply to the email in outlook and save changes when prompted - copy the email to the folder on disk as After.msg

    (The name just have to be different - choose your own file names)

    Now open up a powershell prompt in that folder and run this:

    $outlook = New-Object -ComObject Outlook.Application

    Get-ChildItem -Filter *.msg |

    ForEach-Object {

    $msg = $outlook.Session.OpenSharedItem($\_.FullName)

$msg | Out-File -FilePath ($\_.FullName -replace ".msg$",".log")

$msg.Close(1)

    }

    Now use a tool like WinMerge to compare the two ".log" files for differences.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-05-28T19:33:49+00:00

    Hey, I don't currently have access to a machine with the issue to test. I found a reddit that suggests rolling back to the semi-annual enterprise channel. You can use this command to roll back on a click to run version of office 2016 or later. Please let me know if this solves for you.

    "C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun\officec2rclient.exe" /update user updatetoversion=16.0.12527.21912

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Outlook/comments/mlxmjw/the_properties_of_the_message_have_been_changed/

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-05-28T12:58:58+00:00

    -On-Premise Exchange.

    -All emails, regardless of attachment. If you open the email in it's own window and reply or forward, you will get the request to save when closing the original email window. If you close Outlook and reopen the application, the message will show up on the 2nd reply or fwd. The first one will work as intended.

    -Have tried several build versions, but here is an example 13901.20462

    On a side note, this seems to coincide with the Exchange security patch that was released on May 11th. KB5003435.

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