Windows Mail Crashes Upon Opening Attachment

[Cameron]

I have run Windows Mail under Vista for 6 months without problems. Then when
I tried to open PDF attachments to messages by clicking on their icons, Mail
crashed. Now Word attachments have the same effect, although not always. I
changed my security settings by unchecking "Do not allow attachments . . ."
but that didn't help. In a crash the Mail window fades to white, then Mail
restarts. A work-around is to save the attachments to the desktop without
opening, but I shouldn't have to do that. Please help.

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

That type of problem is usually caused by interference from a non-
compatible antivirus program. Which antivirus are you running?
As a minimum, email scanning in the antivirus must be turned off,
although that may not be sufficient to eliminate all bad effects.
In a worst case scenario, your antivirus may need to be uninstalled.

If turning off your antivirus email scanning function does not resolve
your problem, consider upgrading to Windows Live Mail, because it
is less prone to suffering bad effects from overly intrusive antivirus
programs: http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview

Email scanning in any antivirus must be disabled, for reasons
explained here:
http://thundercloud.net/infoave/tutorials/email-scanning/index.htm

 

[Cameron]

Thanks, Gary, for the anti-virus advice. I'm running Norton Protection
Center. I did turn off "scan incoming email", and it appeared to solve the
crashing problem at first. But Mail still has crashed when I attempted to
open a Word attachment, so there appears to be more problems. I hesitate to
change to Windows Live Mail because I'm very used to the present application
but will do so as a last resort. Does anyone have other ideas for solving
the problem?

 

[Steve Cochran]

Get rid of Norton. Its not compatible. See www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#3
(point 3)

steve

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

I suggest you do a trial uninstall of your Norton security program,
and follow up by using their debris removal tool:
http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039
You can always reinstall Norton if it turns out *not* to be the culprit.

The only other known solution is upgrading to Windows Live Mail,
because it is less prone to suffering bad effects from overly aggressive
antivirus programs.

 

[DHIREN CHHEDA]

I have the same problem. I am running Windows Vista and windows mail and
Norton Antivirus. I didn't have this problem with Widows XP and Outlook
express and Norton. Also upgrading to Windows Live Mail didn't solve the
problem. Still I have same problem. I tried Microsoft Outlook with Windows
Vista and Norton - no problem. But then I do not want to use Microsoft
Outlook.

Please suggest solution.

I suggest you do a trial uninstall of your Norton security program,
and follow up by using their debris removal tool:
http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039
You can always reinstall Norton if it turns out *not* to be the culprit.

The only other known solution is upgrading to Windows Live Mail,
because it is less prone to suffering bad effects from overly aggressive
antivirus programs.

 

[mac]

I have the same problem. I am running Windows Vista and windows mail and
Norton Antivirus. I didn't have this problem with Widows XP and Outlook
express and Norton. Also upgrading to Windows Live Mail didn't solve the
problem. Still I have same problem. I tried Microsoft Outlook with Windows
Vista and Norton - no problem. But then I do not want to use Microsoft
Outlook.

Please suggest solution.

The problem is, that Norton and WM do not like each other, remove Norton and
use one of the free AV Applications from the web, I use AVG Free.

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

As I suggested below, do a trial uninstall of Norton to see if it is the
culprit. Presumably you can always reinstall if no improvement.

Several Norton users have reported here that when you complain
about this problem via the Norton online chat line, the tech fixes
the problem by installing Norton Antivirus 2009.

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

Thanks for your report. That squares with what I heard from half a dozen
other users with the same problem. Norton Antivirus 2009 seems to be
a pretty good product for a change.