Outlook reverts to localhost for pop3 and incorrect username

[Olmycat]

Hi guys,
I have a good set of skills with a PC but this
problem is driving me nuts. Before anyone asks I have
the latest EVERYTHING.

However, my mail account within Outlook Express, now and
then has the POP3 server address corrupted by something.

From its normal mail server address (my ISP's mail
server) the address appears to change to "localhost"

At the same time, my username has been appended to be

"username\mail.server.com.etc"

IE:
The POP3 mail server address ends up tacked on to the
back of the username with a slash. And the POP3 server is
changed to localhost!

Is something modifying my settings directly? It isn't
very vicious, but requires me to constantly rewrite the
setting for my mail account. I am not doing it, It is
not a virus, I have all the latest updates, drivers,
bios,firmware, virus patterns, all of it...

Microsoft has nothing I can find, yet this problem has
happened to me over the years on different machines that
have not even been in contact with each other. Surely
this is a bug microsoft are aware of?

Please help me, am I missing something really obvious?

 

[Phil]

I've seen anti-virus programs that scan incoming email as well change these
settings. I know nortons used to do something similar. It basicly changes it
to localhost(127.0.0.1) so it can download it to a temp folder, scan it,
then put it in your inbox. It adds your server to your user name because
some email server allow this type of log in. Check your av program for an
email scanning setting.

 

[neo [mvp outlook]]

You have a personal firewall or antivirus software installed that has the
ability to scan e-mail as it is retrieved. You would need to disable that
feature in order to get your settings to stick.