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James Layton said:
I am unable to open most attachments to email messages - I
get a message telling me that OE has blocked the
attachment as unsafe; however, all attachmets seem to be
blocked - this message occurs on XP - it does not occur on
my desktop computer with 98. how can I override this block
or be in control of how it is used? thanks
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 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..."
