Hey guys, this question is mainly dealing with OutLook Express in XP, I just did not have enough room to write OutLook Express in the subject line :-)

Anyway, most of us know that by turning off Preview Pane, we have less risk of accidently catching a virus through e-mail, and that we really don't know (in most cases) what is in an e-mail unless we open and see.

Well, by right-clicking on an unopen e-mail and selecting Properties, you can see the address it comes from. You can go one further once in Properties by clicking the Details tab and then at the bottom clicking "Message Source", which allows you to see the message inside, without seemingly having to open it.

My real question is, can you use the "Message Source" option to view the contents of an e-mail and not risk catching a virus that may be inside?

dw226 - that is a great question and one I have wondered myself. I use that all the time to see what's in spam without opening the email. I asked that somewhere, maybe not on this forum, I can't remember for sure. And the answer I got was that viewing the nessage souce would probably not allow the virus to get in. But I am still cautions about it. I'm curious to what others say here also.

Mailwasher will allow you to view e-mails at your server b4 downloading. Then you can delete them at your server without getting them into your system at all. It's good and it's FREE.

Good luck

V...

dw226

I always look at Message Source if I'm suspicious of a Message - especially if it has an Attachment

Doing that doesn't open the Attachment - not as far as I'm aware anyway - but now you have me wondering!

I believe there are some (rare?) Viruses which can be in the Body of an HTML Message but I think just looking at Message Source would not activate those

Having looked at Message source - the Message in the Inbox remains in its Unopened state - ie the little Envelope is still Yellow and closed

Maybe someone can enlighten us definitively

Lesley

What a coincidence! I noticed a thread about this just a few minutes ago at the Lavasoft forum. Here's the link:

Message Source Thread

Well, about the only thing I can do is use it until a virus does pop through. Then I will know if it is safe or not. It might sound dumb to chance it, but, no one has ever found a practice to be unsafe unless they actually did it and something happened.

It's strange how people seemed to think the Message Source function was not in XP, granted it isn't in front of your face, but it's there. The Moderators there say it's safe, so I'll assume it is until proven otherwise.

Thanks for that link, mammabear. That's what I thought and I'm glad to see it confirmed.

Hello everyone! I use message source to read all my email and have been for years. If I decide to open it I send it to my desktop for a virus scan first. It's no big deal for me to take extra steps to be safe. I've done this with many infected emails to see who the sender was. Spam is deleted or blocked! I just thought it may be of some interest to you all :-)