larguy said:
All most all of my emails I am receiving have the attachments removed
with the following message "OE removed access to the following unsafe
attachments in your mail etc" these emails are coming from people I
know. some using OE to send them. I have a new installation of
Windows xp home, version 2002. I tried relaxing the security with
know luck. anybody have any clues for me . thanks
First of all, note that although your subject line say "Out Look," the body
of your message refers to OE. OE is Outlook Express, not Outlook, and these
are two very different applications.
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 attachement 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..."
