I'll bet the OP was facing something similar to what I'm facing. In Outlook Express 6, when I type a plaintext network link such as \\server\folder\file.ext, the link correctly turns to the blue color indicating that OE has realized that it is a link and has made it clickable. BUT, when I right-click the link in the message and look at its properties, it has been fudged so that clicking on it will actually try to access file://\\server\folder\file.ext. If the file:// could be removed, it would probably work.