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General discussion

Outlook Express 5.0

Mar 14, 2004 12:55PM PST

Whenever I go to my OE mailbox (at least for the past 3 weeks or so), the e-mails are visible, but my whole system freezes. I am unable to do anything- my cursor is kaput, etc. I have WIN98SE, plenty of RAM and system resources. Have used Ace Utilities and AVG virus scan and so on without any luck. Called Dell who told me to call Cablevision who told me to call Dell.
The only way to get my system to run is by shutting off and on power button.
Help, please.
PS If I reboot in safe mode, Outlook works fine.

Discussion is locked

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Re:Outlook Express 5.0 + your current OE 5 usage is dangerous.
Mar 14, 2004 8:22PM PST

With all the possible exploits open that no antivirus or firewall can stop with OE 5.0 viewing email, I can only share that everyone has to approach OE (Outlook Express) in a new way.

1. The Microsoft Code Leak.

This recent event made older versions, even with all patches vulnerable to exploit.

Right or wrong, kicking or screaming, 5.0 is not usable/safe. 5.5 is exploitable too. 6.0 is now the safest. Don't complain to me about this...

2. Your PREVIEW of the email is outright dangerous. This is right up there with opening email from people you don't know.

No preview should be enabled in OE. Again, this is the new reality of how EXPLOITATION of OE is accomplished and you must turn that off.

Bob

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Re:Outlook Express 5.0
Mar 14, 2004 9:40PM PST

1. The "Step-by-Step Confirmation Mode" explained in this article is similar to using Safe Mode since it permits the stepping through of various stages of the boot process to allow what can or what is allowed to load and becomes very useful to isolate which particular stage/step is causing the problem -- you keep a written record of each iteration. The process is time consuming but allows the selection of only certain items (1 to 4 at a time) that when loaded causes or does not cause the anomaly. If a stage succeeded, process another group until a group cause the problem -- then isolate the items in that group to find the culprit.

2. Understand fully the section titled, "Using System File Checker" in the TechNet article "Chapter 27 - General Troubleshooting" concerning the use and troubleshooting strategy with this utility. In addition a very good article on the TechAdvice site is "SFC." Heed the warning described in the article "System File Checker Tool Extracts Incorrect File Versions (Q192832)."