virus scanning attachments

One thing I'd sure like to see is the ability to right click an attachment and virus scan it right from the e-mail it came in rather than having to save it to your hard drive first.

Hi Leslie,
That'd be a function of the AV software, it would have to integrate into the mail program. Most instead scan incoming mail prior to it landing in your inbox, and any attempts to save attachments.
-- Best of Luck,
Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/ Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
"Leslie Crystal" wrote in message

One thing I'd sure like to see is the ability to right click an attachment and virus scan it right from the e-mail it came in rather than having to save it to your hard drive first.

Binary attachments are BASE64 encoded so that they can be transmitted across the Internet. Once you download a message its on your computer as a single file that has the text components and the encoded attachments. To save the file, you first need to decode it, and the antivirus software works only on decoded attachments. So to do what you want, the av software would first have to take the attachment, decode it from BASE64, and then scan it and then determine what to do with it. The same thing occurs if you try just to open the attachment -- the av software detects that in memory and blocks the opening of it, if its determined to be a virus (or whatever "bad"). However, the attachment still needs to be decoded first. So the best thing to do is to just save the questionable attachment (which will decode it) and then right click on it to scan it, which many av programs allow currently.
steve
"Leslie Crystal" wrote in message

One thing I'd sure like to see is the ability to right click an attachment and virus scan it right from the e-mail it came in rather than having to save it to your hard drive first.

"Leslie Crystal" wrote:

One thing I'd sure like to see is the ability to right click an attachment and virus scan it right from the e-mail it came in rather than having to save it to your hard drive first.

If you have a good anti-virus program (such as AVG Free) then the attachment has already been scanned and approved before you even know it is there.