No incoming attachments

[peggy livigni]

My computer (hp) is 5 weeks old. I have never received
any incoming attachments on my E-mail. Since my husband
is out of work, it is vital to receive attachments.
Could you please help us? All of the attachments have a
message "OE removed access to the following unsafe
attachments in your mail".

Thanking you in advance, Peggy

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

My computer (hp) is 5 weeks old. I have never received
any incoming attachments on my E-mail. Since my husband
is out of work, it is vital to receive attachments.
Could you please help us? All of the attachments have a
message "OE removed access to the following unsafe
attachments in your mail".

Starting with SP1, Outlook Express does this by default, for any
file type which *can* contain a virus. It's not a virus checker,
doesn't actually check the attachments, and this doesn't mean
that there actually is a virus there.

Such attachments *are* very risky. You often see advice not to
open attachments from people you don't know. I think that that's
one of the most dangerous pieces of advice you see around,
because it implies that it's safe to do the opposite--open
attachments from friends and relatives. But many viruses spread
by sending themselves to everyone in the infected party's address
book, so attachments received from friends are perhaps the *most*
risky to open.

Personally I think what Outlook Express does is good; I never
open executable attachments at all, except from a *very* few
trusted sources, and then only when I'm expecting them. But if
you want to remove this safeguard, it's easy to do so: go to
Tools | Options, and on the security tab, uncheck "Do not allow
attachments..."

 

[Menno Hershberger]

My computer (hp) is 5 weeks old. I have never received
any incoming attachments on my E-mail. Since my husband
is out of work, it is vital to receive attachments.
Could you please help us? All of the attachments have a
message "OE removed access to the following unsafe
attachments in your mail".

Thanking you in advance, Peggy

In Outlook Express go to Tools - Options, and click the security tab.
Uncheck "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could
potentially be a virus."

 

[Malvern]

My computer (hp) is 5 weeks old. I have never received
any incoming attachments on my E-mail. Since my husband
is out of work, it is vital to receive attachments.
Could you please help us? All of the attachments have a
message "OE removed access to the following unsafe
attachments in your mail".

Thanking you in advance, Peggy

To change, go to Tools>Options>Security tab and. unmark "Do not allow
attachments to be saved or opened which could potentially contain a virus"
with a mouse click on the checkmark. Just remember to know what you are
opening and from who to avoid viruses, or much better, have an antivirus
program installed and configured for "auto-protect" to scan incoming
e-mails. My Norton A-V has nailed several.

Malv

 

[Malvern]

My computer (hp) is 5 weeks old. I have never received
any incoming attachments on my E-mail. Since my husband
is out of work, it is vital to receive attachments.
Could you please help us? All of the attachments have a
message "OE removed access to the following unsafe
attachments in your mail".

Thanking you in advance, Peggy

To change, go to Tools>Options>Security tab and. unmark "Do not allow
attachments to be saved or opened which could potentially contain a virus"
with a mouse click on the checkmark. Just remember to know what you are
opening and from who to avoid viruses, or much better, have an antivirus
program installed and configured for "auto-protect" to scan incoming
e-mails. My Norton A-V has nailed several.

Malv

 

[Plato]

My computer (hp) is 5 weeks old. I have never received
any incoming attachments on my E-mail. Since my husband
is out of work, it is vital to receive attachments.
Could you please help us? All of the attachments have a
message "OE removed access to the following unsafe
attachments in your mail".

http://www.bootdisk.com/xptop10.htm#1

 

[Plato]

Personally I think what Outlook Express does is good; I never
open executable attachments at all, except from a *very* few
trusted sources, and then only when I'm expecting them. But if

Which is why our computers work day in and day out and we can post here
day in and day out.

 

[NobodyMan]

My computer (hp) is 5 weeks old. I have never received
any incoming attachments on my E-mail. Since my husband
is out of work, it is vital to receive attachments.
Could you please help us? All of the attachments have a
message "OE removed access to the following unsafe
attachments in your mail".

Thanking you in advance, Peggy

Peggy, a little advice:

1. This question is asked dozens of times/day. Try searching the
group and looking for other posts about this first!

2. This group is for the XP OS, NOT OE. Try asking in a group with
OUTLOOK EXPRESS or OE in the title and you'll get more specific help.

All that said, there will be plenty of answers for you here anyway.

 

[Alex Nichol]

Personally I think what Outlook Express does is good; I never
open executable attachments at all, except from a *very* few
trusted sources, and then only when I'm expecting them.

It ought really to have separate control over Open and Save, so that you
could not open by accident, but could start a deliberate sequence of
Save - check with an AV (if you do not have one checking at that point
automatically) and then open if safe.

As it is, I think you need to have *separate* advice from any sender
that 'I will be sending you this file'. Or else send a mail back,
asking for confirmation

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Outlook Express' default security settings are simply trying to
protect you. OE has no way of telling whether an attachment actually
contains a virus or not, so it temporarily blocks any of those file
types that could potentially contain a virus. In Outlook Express,
Tools > Options > Security, uncheck the "Do not allow attachments to
be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus" option, assuming
you trust the source, of course. The wiser course of action, however,
would be to modify your list of unsafe files, as outlined in the KB
articles below:

Cannot Open E-Mail Attachments in OE After You Install SP1
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q329570

Information About the Unsafe File List in Internet Explorer 6
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;291369

OLEXP Using Virus Protection Features in Outlook Express 6
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;291387


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:




You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

It ought really to have separate control over Open and Save, so

that


Sure, that would be an improvement.

you could not open by accident, but could start a deliberate sequence
of Save - check with an AV (if you do not have one checking at that
point automatically) and then open if safe.

As it is, I think you need to have *separate* advice from any sender
that 'I will be sending you this file'. Or else send a mail back,
asking for confirmation

Yes. But even then you need to be careful. My main concern is
that someone should be extremely wary of believing that because
the attachment is from a relative or close friend, that it's
therefore safe to open it. My brother-in-law is fond of sending
out joke attachment programs. He works in a large corporate
environment and sends these from his work address. Even though he
sends them on purpose, and would confirm it if asked, the risk is
fairly high, in such a corporate environment, of his machine
being infected; viruses can spread very quickly on corporate
networks. I don't open these, and have told him why.

My point is that, just because you know and trust the sender, it
does *not* follow that an attachment he sends is safe. Lots of
people reply to questions about how to turn off Outlook Express's
blocking of executable attachments simply by explaining how to
turn it off. I think telling someone how to turn it off without
explaining the issues and the attendant risks does a disservice
to the person asking.