omputer, ccounting  & ax ervices

 

“WORKING TO MAKE YOUR LIFE EASIER”

“FLEXIBLE TO MEET YOUR NEEDS”

 

Teresa A. Suchy                                                                                                                                                            (319) 439-5344 or (319) 230-1677

6648 11th Avenue                                                                                                                                                                                 goclones@netins.net

Elberon, IA  52225                                                                                                                                                     http://showcase.netins.net/web/cats/

 

 


SAFELY RECEIVING EMAIL ATTACHMENTS IN OUTLOOK EXPRESS

Start by clicking SEND/RECV on the toolbar. 

If you receive an email with an attachment it will look like this with a paperclip to the left of the header:

Double-click on the email to open it.

In the box following “Attach:” is the name of the file which was sent as an attachment. You can double-click (left) or right-click for options (and left clicking “open”).

Here is your chance to save it to your hard disk and scan it with your virus scanning software.  I advise VERY STRONGLY to select “Save it to disk” and then selecting “OK”.  You may chose instead to select “Open it” and then “OK”… BUT… if you do… your computer may continue to operate fine, OR IT MAY NOT.  Your computer may chose to work for a while...and then it just won't.  It depends on how long it takes for the damage (if there is any) to be done.

If you are still reading, you probably chose to select “Save it to disk” and “OK”.  This example shows saving the attachment file to “C:\Internet Files” folder but you can chose which path you want to save them to.  You will want to be consistent and save them all to the same folder so you can more easily find the files when you want them.  You may also want to write down the entire path name so you can access the file once you know it is clean of viruses.

 

First select the drive you wish to save the attachment to (instead of your hard drive you may chose to save them to a removable media like floppies or cds).

Double-click the folder you want to SAVE the file in. In this example it is Internet Files.

Press the SAVE button and the email file attachment will be saved in the C:\Internet Files folder.  The “path” of the file is C:\Internet Files\Happy.exe.  If you wanted to you could rename the file to whatever you would like it to be called by overwriting the “File name:” box.

Now you can go do anything you want with that file. If you are uncertain what it is, you may want to scan it with anti-virus software before you execute it.  If the anti-virus software is up to date (especially  with virus definations) it will then be safe to open the file.  There are too many anti-virus programs out there for me to document how to virus scan an individual file but if you access your program and go to help on the menu it should document the process for you.

Attachments are often fun.  Using this process helps us all to be able to continue viewing them. 

 

Once you know the file is clean, you can access it by right-clicking on “Start” (bottom left of your screen) and left-clicking “Explore”.  You can now navigate to your new file (hopefully you remember the path where you saved the file – if not, go to “Start” and then “Search” to find the file).

 

There it is.  Right where you saved it.