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Outlook Express 6 and E-mail Attachment Security

Outlook Express 6 has a security setting that will prevent users from accessing "unsafe" (normally executable) attachments. According to Microsoft, this option is not enabled by default, but some users have reported to the Office of Information Technology (OIT) Help Desk that they were unable to access attachments in Outlook Express 6 even though they did not manually enable this option.

This security option can be turned on or off by doing the following:

1. On the Outlook Express menu bar, click on Tools and then Options.
2. Click on the Security tab.
3. Check (to enable) or uncheck (to disable) the setting Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus.
4. Click the Apply button, and then the OK button.
5. Restart Outlook Express 6 to complete the settings change.

   For more information on this feature, including information about how to determine and change what kind of attachments are blocked, visit http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q291387.