My computer has been in operation for two months and has developed an annoying habit of removing attachments which it brands as unsafe. This may well be true in some instances. However, photos sent to me of family members have been branded as “unsafe” and removed. The following message appears on the email: ”OE has removed access to the following unsafe attachments in your mail” and then refers to the title of the attachment. This wasn’t a problem on my old computer with Windows 98. Any ideas or suggestions that may help to solve this problem would be appreciated. I am running Windows XP.

This is a common problem that occurs with a new security feature in Windows XP (in particular, relating to Outlook Express 6). To stop Outlook Express blocking attachments which have ‘unsafe’ file extensions, go to the ‘Tools’ menu > ‘Options’ and click the ‘Security’ tab. Uncheck the option ‘Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus’. Click OK. Close Outlook Express and open it again. The problem should now be solved. However, as always, take precautions before opening any email attachments to ensure that they are legit (e.g., me.jpg) and not being disguised in order to lure you into opening the attachment (e.g., me.jpg.exe - which is actually an EXE program file that appears to be a JPEG image). Files like the previously mentioned .EXE file would most likely be a virus. Never open any suspicious looking attachments. Always delete the email.