Internet Explorer Ver. 6 Security Update Disallows Attachments

Published: Sep 30, 2002


Recent Windows updates have left many users scratching their heads over the sudden inability to open e-mail attachments or view stored Web pages as thumbnail images.

Clicking on the paper clip icon indicating a message bears an attachment may result in this message from Microsoft Outlook Express:

``OE removed access to the following unsafe attachments in your mail.''
An update to Outlook Express 6 is intended to stop users from opening any attachment that could potentially contain a virus.

If an up-to-date antivirus program is running on your system and you're confident an attachment is safe, you can turn off the security setting.

To turn the security feature on or off, click on the Tools menu in Outlook Express, click Options and then click the Security tab.

Click next to ``Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus'' to turn the setting on or off.

Windows XP users who have installed Service Pack 1 may have noticed that stored Web pages, e-mail messages and newsgroup messages can no longer be viewed as thumbnail images in Windows Explorer.

To improve performance and stability, Microsoft disabled Windows XP's ability to display thumbnails of documents with extensions .htm, .html, .eml or .nws. Apparently there isn't a way to re-enable that feature, short of uninstalling SP1.

After installing service pack 2 the Do not allow attachments was defalted back on again and once again will have to be turned off as above.