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Solutions
View suspicious-looking e-mails without opening them
By JOHN TORRO
Published June 13, 2005
Q. Some time ago, you gave instructions on how to see your incoming e-mail (sender and subject) but not reveal the opened e-mail contents until after you clicked to open it.
A. This is something every reader should know: Whenever you receive a suspicious e-mail but you're not quite sure that you want to just automatically delete it, right-click the unopened e-mail in your Inbox and select Properties. Click the Details tab and then the Message Source button. This will open the contents in a generic, innocuous window that you can now scroll and view. You will see the bare content (unprocessed HTML and binary code of any embedded graphic or executable code). In this state, these will not harm your PC and you can use the surrounding context to determine whether this is something you would want to open and read.
Online help available for Microsoft Publisher 2003
Q. I have been trying without success for months to get a user manual for Microsoft Publisher 2003. The stores (bookstores, Best Buy, Circuit City) don't seem to carry anything, and even Microsoft has not responded. Can you help?
A. Aside from the built-in Help documentation provided with the application, you can try going to msdn.microsoft.com/office/understanding/publisher/ and follow the various links there. More searches for Publisher 2003 should list additional resources for this product. The link to newsgroups at the bottom of that page also will be useful. A trip to a local bookstore also will provide you with more than few how-to books. Or you can check online bookstores as well.
If flagged program is in use, it can't be deleted
Q. When I go through my files to delete with Spybot and Ad-aware, I keep getting these files and I cannot delete them after trying everything that I know to do. The files are: HKey_local_machine/software/speedbit/DownloadAccelerator/ADSDefaultCategory=Default and progra1/morpheus\dap\dap.exe/startup. About three years ago I downloaded Accelerator, which was attached with Napster. The first file shows up on Spybot as a German virus.
A. The first reference is to an entry in your registry. If you feel comfortable editing the registry using REGEDIT, you can navigate to that entry and delete it. As it is, the entry alone is not causing problems. As always, if you do decide to delete it, make sure you have a proper registry backup and are familiar with the procedures to restore. As for the second file, perhaps it is in use and that is what is preventing you from deleting it. Do a ctrl-alt-del and look for the DAP.EXE process. If found, click and abort it. This should allow you to delete the file. You also can try the usual uninstalls through Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs to do this (if it shows there). You click Start and Run, type MSCONFIG and click OK. Click the Startup tab and unselect the DAP program. Reboot and then try the delete again.
Spybot program fault responsible for e-mail errors
Q. I have a feeling that I have a German spy in my computer. I received an e-mail with the subject in German, which I deleted without opening. Directly under that were three undeliverable e-mails messages returned as if I had sent them. I opened one because I was curious since I hadn't sent anything out for two weeks. There again were some German words. I then deleted all three returns and wondered why they were returned to me. The next day I got six more of the so-called returned mail. I deleted them all with out opening any of them. I began to worry that somehow a program was in my computer sending out e-mail. I decided after a couple of days to run Spybot and Ad-aware. Ad-aware got rid of some tracking cookies, but Spybot came up with this: "Error during check!: Xuron55 (Datei C:\WINDOWS\win.ini kann nicht geoffnet werden. The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process) () Congratulations: no immediate threats were found."
A. This is actually a program fault within the Spybot program. Try uninstalling and reinstalling the latest version 1.4 from www.safer-networking.org It is not connected to the returned e-mails. Just keep deleting those without opening; they will stop. I also recommend installing the Microsoft antispyware beta, which can be found at www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software
[Last modified June 10, 2005, 09:54:03]
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