hidden files?

It has come to my attention that even after I empty
my "deleted items" box in Outlook Express, all old emails
and their attachments remain stashed away in some hidden
spot on the computer. I receive dozens of virus/worm-
laden each week, and more often than not, my virus scanner
tells me it's "unable to move [them] to the virus vault".
My solution is always to just delete any incoming mail
with attachments from unknown senders. Now, however, I'm
wondering if the worms (more so than the viruses, from
what I understand) might still pose a potential threat to
my system (WinME) just by virtue of still existing on my
hard drive. Is there a way I can delete these hidden
files, or somehow set things up so that they're not
created in the first place? Thank you!

Your old e-mails and their attachments do not remain stashed away in hidden
folders unless you are running a different operating system to the rest of us
and have the most enormous hard disk as otherwise it would get filled up
pretty quick. :-)

When you delete an e-mail in OE it gets moved to the Deleted Items folder
however a copy still remains in the Inbox folder but the space marked as
usable, until such time as either the folder is compacted or a new e-mail
arrives and occupies the space previously occupied by the infected e-mail.
Likewise for the Deleted items folder, the infected message will still be in
the folder, but the space it uses marked as usable, until such time as the
space is used to store another item moved to the Deleted Items folder or the
folder compacted.

Nothing received via e-mail is going to cause you problems provided that a)
you always view your message as plain text, and b) don't open and run
attachments without first checking that they are safe and then checking again.
:-)

One other possible location for a viewed message is in your Temporary Internet
Files and this can and should be regularly cleared using Control Panel |
Internet Options | General | Delete Files and then checking the box "Delete
all offline content", then click OK and OK again.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



rebecca wrote:

It has come to my attention that even after I empty
my "deleted items" box in Outlook Express, all old emails
and their attachments remain stashed away in some hidden
spot on the computer. I receive dozens of virus/worm-
laden each week, and more often than not, my virus scanner
tells me it's "unable to move [them] to the virus vault".
My solution is always to just delete any incoming mail
with attachments from unknown senders. Now, however, I'm
wondering if the worms (more so than the viruses, from
what I understand) might still pose a potential threat to
my system (WinME) just by virtue of still existing on my
hard drive. Is there a way I can delete these hidden
files, or somehow set things up so that they're not
created in the first place? Thank you!