Problem opening email attachments

[Gordon]

A problem has recently started happening when opening Word attachments to
emails in Outlook Express.

I get a popup box that contains:

---------------------------------------
Message box header = Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library

Runtime Error!

Program c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\WINWORD.EXE

This application has requested the runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

With an OK button
-----------------------------------------

Click on the OK button and Word terminates.

Start Word and the attachment is in the recovered documents - try to "open"
or "save as" has the same effect as above.

If the attachment is saved then opened by double clicking on it in explorer
- no problem.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

 

[Terry Farrell]

I believe this was a recent security update. Because some AVs don't scan
attachments before they are opened from the email, this has been inhibited.
It is necessary to save the attachments to the local HDD so that the AV
scanner will check them for viruses as they are saved.

 

[Gordon]

Thanks Terry - didn't quite answer the question - but gave me somewhere to
look.

In Outlook Express, Tools, Options, Security there is a check box for "Do
not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a
virus."

That was checked - don't know how, it never has been before. (Auto update?)

Unchecked the box and attachments now open OK.
(my AV does scan before opening)
Interesting that with the box checked it still allowed the attachments to be
saved.

I think you'll agree that was one of the less informative error messages.

Cheers

Gordon

 

[Terry Farrell]

Not informative: compared to the standard 'out of memory' error, it was
positively verbose

Terry