MS's latest security patches have an unfortunate side effect of blocking file links which are in Outlook e-mails. The e-mail arrives OK but if one tries to click on the link then a black & yellow popup arrives, stating 'Something is wrong with the URL'. There is no 'Allow/OK or accept' option. So the user can't open the document from inside Outlook.
This turns out not to be easy to fix. If one is working on a Domain, then the fix is to edit or create a GPO which modifies the Site to Zone assignment list, and which adds, for instance, *company.net to the Intranet Zone.
Once this has been done and allowed or forced (GPUpdate /Force) to the target workstations, you then need to close and reopen Outlook (to refresh its settings) and now when you click on the link you will (depending on various other settings) get zero, one or possibly two warning messages, but once these have been 'accepted/OKd' the Word or Excel document will open.
The GPO policy is stored here:
– User configuration > Policies > Administrative templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Internet Control Panel > Security Page > Site to Zone assignment list : Enable
– Enter the zone assignments here – Show… – Value name : https://company.net , Value : 1
– Click OK
– Go to Start > cmd : gpupdate /force
Note that *.company.net would allow 'file' types as well as http(s) UNIs too.