A colleague emailed me an *.exe file
OE removed access to the attachment
anyway to get access to the attachment now,
or is it gone for good?
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.
Even if the attachment legitimately comes from a friend, it can
contain a virus. I'm not suggesting that a friend is likely to send
you a virus on purpose, but if the friend is infected without
realizing it, any attachment he sends you is likely to also be
infected.
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..."
