As many people know, I work with clients almost exclusively using e-mail. They send me files, I do stuff with the files and send them back. So even though I don’t use Outlook, when it behaves badly I tend to find out about it.
Apparently, when you upgrade Outlook Express 6, the updater turns on the block attachments setting by default. It blocks attachments that it deems "unsafe" which includes Word and Zip files (The irony is not lost on me that Microsoft is proclaiming its own software "unsafe.")
In any case, instead of seeing your attachment, you now see an unhelpful message that says something along the lines of:
"Outlook Express removed access to the following unsafe attachments in your email:" and then it lists all the file names you didn’t get to see.
Other methods of getting at your attachment, such as trying to click the Paper clip in the Preview pane, are equally unrewarding.
When people upgrade Outlook Express to Service Pack 1, the "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus" option turned on. So the way to get your attachments back is to disable this option.
To change it, follow these steps:
1. Open Outlook Express.
2. Choose Tools| Options and click the Security tab.
3. Under Virus Protection, click to remove the checkmark next to "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus." Then click OK.
The bad news of course is that now you’ve opened yourself up to getting viruses. Making it impossible to share attached files is certainly overkill, but Microsoft did turn on this option for a reason. People get viruses from e-mails all the time because they fail to scan the file attachments they receive for viruses.
Don’t just open the files you get. Scan them first. To do that, you need to save the attachment. Open the e-mail and then choose File|Save Attachments. Put it in a folder on your hard disk that you use for attached files (mine is aptly named Download, for example). Then use your antivirus software to run a scan on it.
Being able to share files easily is one of the great features of e-mail, but you need to be cautious. If you don’t have updated antivirus software, get it NOW. If you don’t have a firewall, install one. You can get a free firewall from www.ZoneLabs.com