- For Word attachments you can use Wordpad (included with Windows) to open them and this will display almost all advanced formatting in Word, but will not allow viruses to run. To do this, save the attachment then hold down shift and right click on the file and "Open With..." then select Wordpad (sometimes called Write). Or even better, add Wordpad to your "Send To" menu. Contact Me to walk you through this.
- Help prevent spreading email viruses: add an entry to your address book and make sure it comes first. Numbers come before letters, so add a contact with a name such as 01234 and give it no address. Outlook Express will then give you an error message when the virus tries to send to all users in your address book.
- Use a tool such as MailWasher (FreeWare) to intervene before you a virus even makes it through your inbox. This particular tool has the added feature of you being able to bounce emails back to spammers which is the best way to get off of spammers' lists.
- If you are on cable internet, make sure file and print sharing is off unless you are behind a router (and consider getting a router!), and that you are running a firewall.
- Be sure that any critical information is being backed up routinely - to a CDROM or to another hard drive, perferably automatically and daily.
- For more information, or to have your computer inspected for viruses or to set up automatically updating anti-virus software, backups, firewall, etc. Contact Me.
More details on file types:
- .exe .bat .com .vbs .pif .scr are program files and should only be opened if someone is actually sending you a program
- .doc .xls .pub .ppt .mdb are Microsoft Office files and should only be opened if someone is actually sending you a file
- .gif .jpg .png are images and .txt and .rtf are text-only files and are always safe (as long as this is the LAST few characters of the file)
