Red shield by received inbox email instead of yellow closed envelope?

[Melelina]

I just started using Windows Mail in Vista Ultimate about a week ago and I
did so because I am a beta tester for Avira 9 Suite and I needed to test
Avira MailGuard. I am not sure if this odd thing is caused by Avira
MailGuard or is native to Windows Mail. I have asked about in Avira beta
forum and am also asking here.

I got one email downloaded a few minutes ago that instead of having a yellow
closed envelope in the "From" column of the email has instead a red shield
with a white x in it. Plus, the email "Subject" is not in the usual black
font. Instead, the email subject is in red font. If this is caused by
Windows Mail what does it mean? Junk email checking is turned off and I
have not flagged this message or anything. It just downloaded and displayed
in this odd manner.

 

[Steve Cochran]

It may be the junk filter detected phishing in the message and so it got
flagged that way. You can open it and read it and see if there is a fake
link to whatever.

steve

 

[Melelina]

Thank you. I already know it is some sort of spam. I turned off the junk
filter when I first started using Windows Mail because Avira has a spam
filter and I want to test that and don't need both of them. I thought I
turned off Phishing also because, again, Avira MailGuard has that also but
maybe I didn't turn it off. I had already tried reading it from Properties
as I don't like opening spam and letting the spammers know the email address
is "live" but when I looked at it from Properties, like so much spam, it
just looked like gobbledygook. If I actually open it, I'm not sure if it
will display anything readable because I read ALL email (even Microsoft
Newsletters) in Plain text.

 

[Melelina]

Go to File->Work Offline. Or actually go offline.
Then you should be able to open the email and
perhaps figure something out.

Yeah, I should have thought of that. So I "paused" my Motorola Surfboard
cable modem which cuts off the connection from the modem to the computer and
then I opened the email.

Also, isn't it possible that it was red because
Avira says it is spam/phishing/malware?

It turns out Steve Cochran was right. I was confronted not with the email
body but instead, on a bright pink background with the red shield next to
it, was this message:

"Windows Mail thinks this message is suspicious and has blocked it. Images
and links have been blocked for your safety. If you think this mail is not
fraudulent, use the unblock button to access it."

There were two buttons "unblock" and "delete". So, since I already knew it
was spam, I deleted it. Now I kind of wish I had unblocked it to see what
the phishing email looked like. As for the subject line being in red font,
I assume now that was also Windows Mail trying to get my attention.

I tried to find something about this in Windows Mail Help but to no avail. I
find Vista Help in general to be frustrating and frequently not very
helpful. I prefer XP Help and OE Help.

 

[Steve Cochran]

They don't do help very well. Especially since they never finished
developing Winmail. I'm glad you figured it out. The junk filters are hard
to turn off in WinMail completely.

steve

Go to File->Work Offline. Or actually go offline.
Then you should be able to open the email and
perhaps figure something out.

Yeah, I should have thought of that. So I "paused" my Motorola Surfboard
cable modem which cuts off the connection from the modem to the computer
and then I opened the email.

Also, isn't it possible that it was red because
Avira says it is spam/phishing/malware?

It turns out Steve Cochran was right. I was confronted not with the email
body but instead, on a bright pink background with the red shield next to
it, was this message:

"Windows Mail thinks this message is suspicious and has blocked it. Images
and links have been blocked for your safety. If you think this mail is not
fraudulent, use the unblock button to access it."

There were two buttons "unblock" and "delete". So, since I already knew it
was spam, I deleted it. Now I kind of wish I had unblocked it to see what
the phishing email looked like. As for the subject line being in red
font, I assume now that was also Windows Mail trying to get my attention.

I tried to find something about this in Windows Mail Help but to no avail.
I find Vista Help in general to be frustrating and frequently not very
helpful. I prefer XP Help and OE Help.