Recently saving attachments from Outlook Express is woefully slow. For example, a 28 KB attachment took about one and a half minutes to save! The computer is a Celeron 467 MHz with 256 MB RAM running with Norton Antivirus 2006, Ad-Aware, and ZoneAlarm running Windows XP Home Edition. How can I speed up the process of saving attachments?

I imagine this problem has something to do with the specifications of your computer, since you are running quite a demanding operating system (Windows XP) on a relatively old generation computer (Celeron with 256 MB RAM). However, this by itself should not cause such slow progress when saving email attachments, since this is a relatively simple process. Therefore, my speculation on the cause of this problem is something running in the background which is interacting when saving attachments. The most likely culprit would be virus scanners which are scanning attachments when you are saving them from Outlook Express. I notice you are running Norton Antivirus 2006. This is quite resource intensive software, especially considering you are running the software on such a slow computer. Therefore, we should first check whether Norton Antivirus is causing the computer to slow down when saving attachments. As this process will involve disabling Norton Antivirus, you should first disconnect from the internet (or if you have a broadband connection, unplug the network cable from your computer). Once this has been done, we will first try disabling Norton Antivirus Auto-Protect. Right-click on the Norton Antivirus Auto-Protect icon in the system tray (next to the clock in the bottom left hand corner of your screen) and select ‘Disable’ from the menu that appears. A red circle with a slash should appear over the Norton Antivirus Auto-Protect icon indicating it has been disabled. Once this has been done, close and then re-open Outlook Express and try saving an attachment to check whether the problem has been resolved. Should the problem be fixed, there is little I can suggest apart from perhaps disabling the Norton Antivirus Auto-Protect when you wish to save attachments (not recommended, since you are unprotected when this is disabled). Alternatively, you may wish to seek a different virus scanner.

However, should the problem continue it is difficult to say whether Norton Antivirus is still interacting with the system and causing the slow-down, since this is such complicated software sometimes things will keep running in the background even when you think it is disabled. The only definitive test for this would be uninstalling Norton Antivirus to check whether the problem persists. However, this is quite a large task, so it is really up to you whether you wish to embark on this endeavour. Regardless of your decision, before going any further make sure you re-enable the Norton Antivirus Auto-Protect by right-clicking on the Norton Antivirus Auto-Protect icon and select ‘Enable’ from the menu.

If Norton Antivirus does not look like the culprit, you are also running two other pieces of security software which could be causing the problem: ZoneAlarm and Ad-Aware. We will first check whether ZoneAlarm is causing the problem. With your computer still disconnected from the internet, right-click on the ZoneAlarm icon in the system tray and select ‘Shutdown ZoneAlarm’. Once ZoneAlarm has closed, close and then re-open Outlook Express and check whether the problem has been resolved. If the problem is resolved, it could be related to the MailSafe protection in ZoneAlarm. Restart ZoneAlarm and then double-click on the ZoneAlarm system tray icon to open the ZoneAlarm program. In the window that appears, select the ‘E-mail Protection’ page and select ‘Off’. Select the ‘Overview’ page (as changing pages will save the settings) and then close and then re-open Outlook Express to check whether the problem is still fixed. In the event this does not fix the problem, you should re-enable MailSafe protection in ZoneAlarm.

Finally, it is also possible Ad-Aware could be causing problems with saving attachments. This is only likely to occur if you are running the paid versions of Ad-Aware (i.e. Ad-Aware SE Plus, Professional, or Enterprise). These versions include real-time scanning which could be scanning the email attachments when being saved from Outlook Express. In this case, go into Ad-Aware and try disabling real-time scanning (this may also be known as the ‘Ad-Watch’ feature). If you are running the free edition of Ad-Aware (i.e. Ad-Aware SE Personal) these instructions will not apply. In this event, should the problem persist then please contact me again.

Of course, ultimately you may be faced with decisions about whether to upgrade or replace your computer.