Microsoft have been publishing Office software for more than two decades now. During all these years they have completely changed the way Microsoft Office looks and works. While the basics remain the same, the latest versions might not be able to access some of the files generated by Office from the 90s.
For example, Microsoft Outlook 1997 and 2000 produced TNEF encoded email message data files (winmail.dat) which cannot be properly opened by newer versions of email client software. While some email clients can access them, they may not be able to successfully recover all the files and messages embedded inside them.
With the help of a third-party application called Winmail Opener we can open these TNEF encoded files and access the email messages from inside them. The user interface of Winmail Opener is as simple as it can be. you just have open the winmail.dat file in Winmail Opener. The rest is handled by the software itself.
When an email message is displayed from the winmail.dat it shows the sender email address, the email message subject, the actual email message and the attachments inside the message. You can extract the attachments to a local file on your computer if desired.
What else can Winmail Opener do? Well, it can save your email messages into the modern EML format. The EML file format is recognized by all the modern email clients such as Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook. In a way we can say that Winmail Opener can be used to convert the old winmail email messages into the new EML file format.
If you have an old archive containing these email message (winmail.dat) then you can use Winmail Opener to quickly access the email messages from inside these files. It is also able to extract any hidden attachments from these messages.
You can download Winmail Opener from https://www.eolsoft.com/freeware/winmail_opener/.