Outlook Express

[Chrys. [dmytrukc]

Outlook refuses to open e-mail attachments. The
message "OE removed access to the following unsafe
attachments in your mail" appears and the attachment
orginally sent with the e-mail disappears. I have checked
for viruses using Norton, which is updated virtually
everyday and it shows that no viruses are present. Can
you help solve the problem so that I can receive my
attachments with my e-mail.

 

[PA Bear]

See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329570

 

[jcl5]

Open outlook express, go to tools, go to options, go to security, uncheck
the box that says "do not allow attachments..."
That should fix it.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

Outlook refuses to open e-mail attachments. The
message "OE removed access to the following unsafe
attachments in your mail" appears and the attachment
orginally sent with the e-mail disappears. I have checked
for viruses using Norton, which is updated virtually
everyday and it shows that no viruses are present. Can
you help solve the problem so that I can receive my
attachments with my e-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 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..."