Outlook Express

I have not been able to figure out how to get Outlook to not open my e-mails in the preview screen when I select an e-mail to delete. (Win 2000 OS)

Also.
I get a large number of spam e-mails that I have to dispose of. Is there a greater risk of harm from malicious mail when e-mails automatically open.
I do not open unexpected attachments.

 

For outlook express go to view--->layout. on the lower half unselect the "show preview pane.

for Outlook go to view, click on preview pane to activate or deactivate it.
this will remove the preview pane and you have to dbl click on a message to open it. If you have many spams to delete hold down the ctrl key and click on each one you wish to delete and then hit del or the delete button on the menu bar.

Brian

 

If you are running Outlook 2002 get in to “Organize” in Outlook. Set up your junk email filtering. It takes a little to set them up properly but once you do I have found Outlook 2002 to be very efficient.

 

It was right under my nose.
I am running Outlook 5. I'll maybe look into Outlook 2002 and run that it if it's better.
Is there a greater risk of virus infection if the e-mails are previewed before deleting, or is it just the attachments that could be a problem.

 

Any e mail can have a file with a virus. It is imperative to have a quality virus protection program on your computer. MacAfee's newest 6.01 version has email scanning built in, as well as a personal firewall. If you stay connected alot, I would strongly recommend it.

 

GregH, I agree that a virus and firewall program help in eliminating threats, but they are not a substitute for defensive driving.

Tidbits from the past:
MorethanaCarpenter once stated something to the effect: never put a critical system online. Good advice..., considering that no system is compltely secure.

In a unrealted post, BSB, had the right idea: Win98 and Win2000 installed on seperate removeable hard drives. Potentially he has a secure system, and one less secure.

I am not recommending either one, but they are among the more noteworthy comments made within this forum.


Defensive driving:
The closest implementations to a personal email privilaged database that Outlook offers are message rules and blocking senders [applies to pop3 only - not http or Imap accounts]

Rules can be setup in a number of ways. For example, privileged senders [Name, "Code Keyword" within the body, etc.] sent automatically to a designated local folder. IIndividual senders or entire domains can be blocked. For how to: the F1 key launchs help for any open Windows application.

A friendly hack:
"hack" - the altered or misuse of a program or file. "friendly" - non malicious.

Downloaded email messages and attachments [text portion only] may be viewed with Wordpad instead of opening them with Outlook.

Cons: size of the selected .DBX file, traversing messages and legibility, and the remote possiblity of file
corruption if alterations are made while Wordpad is open.

Pros: Wordpad does not support Macros, nor is it hooked to API functions that will execture malicous code. IP addresses, domain names, email addresses, and other relavenet information that may be useful in setting up
message rules and/or blocking senders can be extracted.

Procedure: >Start >Find "*.dbx" minus the quotes. Select inbox, deleted, sent, or a local folder name. Right click, select "open with", then Wordpad. ALWAYS deselect "always use this program". Otherwise Outlook and Wordpad will compete and your registry will contain corrupt entires.

This process works best when the messsages you wish to save are moved to a local folder [automatically using rules or individually by hand] and inbox.dbx is deleted on a regular basis. Not to worry, Outlook recreats default folders when it's opened. You conserve disk space and this process is faster with smaller files.

What you cannot do: move .dbx files to another location, without using the "export" function, and then copy them
back to their original locaton and expect to open them as usual. This will not work, because of the way Outlook
indexes files.

What you should not do: alter the file while viewing it with Wordpad. Expect to see squares like this: Do not
delete or alter them. The squares are Wordpads interpretation of reserved characters.

End hack - for what it's worth.

 

Thank you all for your help.
I could not find Outlook 2002, so I upgraded from Outlook 5 to Outlook 6.
I was planning to reformat a 5 Gig HD I have, set it up as a slave and use it to back up my data files. If the unthinkable were to happen and my OS became corrupted by a virus, would my data be safe on the slave drive? ( Win 2000, NTFS file system)

 

Any disk is susceptible to failure. A data disk combine with external backups of critical data has always been recommended for any OS or file system.

My nickels worth:
Even though references to DOS are seen as objectional by some, DOS is a useful tool. With DOS extender programs NTFS can be read and/or written to. NTFS extender programs exist for Win9xs also, but DOS is compact. You may find its compactness beneficial in the advent of accessing data if or when Win2000 fails to operate.

A DOS freeware program for reading NTFS http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr...fsdospro.shtml For intensive recovery capabilities see Disk Commander http://www.winternals.com/ It's not an inexpensive program, but it's not a puny MS tool either.

If your data is critical I would create a small FAT16 Primary partition on the secondary drive and create one or more NTFS partitions on the remainder. FAT16 is reserved for emergency installation of DOS. It may be primitive, but grandpappy still has legitimate uses.

 

You actually stand a very good chance of getting an unwanted virus,with your system opening your email. suggest you contact Microsoft A S A P to find out how to end the system opening email