The only attachments that OE will open in the preview pane are JPG, GIF
and BMP files which are harmless. Having OE display them in the Preview
Pane will actually protect your from some Trojan Horses. One type uses
an attachment with a name such as IMAGE.JPG.exe hoping that you think
it's a JPG rather an a program. (The IMAGE part varies and the .exe can
be any type of program including .com, .bat, .pif, .vbs, etc.). If you
have told Windows to hide file extensions, (Settings, Folder Options,
View, Hide File Extensions) you are more likely to get tricked by this.
If you have set OE to open images in the Preview Pane and OE doesn't
automatically display it then it's not a real image.

--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm



"Kate" wrote in message
...
Sometimes I get emails with jpeg attachments and when I open them the
images are displayed below the text. This applies to attachments in
binary newsgroups, as well. I know that jpeg attachments can be
dodgy, so what I would like to know is, if the images appear below the
email or post, are the files actually opened, or is it that only by
double-clicking the file attachment and opening them that way could
they create a potential danger?

I use AVG Free (without email scanner) and thought that I could
right-click an email or post in OE before opening it and I would have
the option to Scan with AVG just to make sure, but this is not the
case, unfortunately. I can scan with AVG if I save emails or posts to
Desktop before opening it, but would any infection they may contain be
released by the "save as" action, please? It seems unlikely, but I
thought I would ask...

Thank you
Kate