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Windows Live OneCare Can Eat Your Email

Posted by kdawson on from the have-a-care dept.

FutureDomain writes in to point us to a blog sponsored by PC Magazine, reporting about another problem with Windows Live OneCare. Apparently, it sometimes deletes the entire Outlook or Outlook Express .PST mailbox when it finds a virus in one of the messages. The only solution is to tell OneCare to exclude the entire Outlook mailbox. This is the software that came in last in antivirus tests. The trail of tears is ongoing over on the Microsoft forums.

3 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. OneCare deletes nothing by The+Bungi · · Score: 5, Informative
    Obviously they screwed up on the 1.5 RTM where now apparently they'll quarantine the whole PST file (don't get me started on the "one huge fucking file for everything" mentality...), but AFAICT OneCare does not delete the file. The problem is that it essentially hides it under [C:\Documents and Settings\All Users]\Application Data\Microsoft\OneCare Protection\Quarantine, compressed in a .CAB file and not accessible from a non-admin account. But if you can log into the machine with an admin account, you can recover the file, and turn off OneCare scanning of your mail file for good measure.

    Then, get a good AV package - or better yet, just exercise some fucking common sense and don't open that "Re: Malaca Superfund Stranded" email from "Roberta Plantagenet~=%" that has a "postcard.exe" attachment.

  2. Re:trail of tears? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yeah, like Linux never loses mail. One of the grave RC bugs of Debian Etch has been bug 321102/332473/350851 where KMail will nuke your disconnected IMAP folder under certain conditions. It's closed now and due for archiving today, but they're still listed here. I haven't been checking Thunderbird, Evolution but I doubt they're a symbol of perfection either. Wouldn't you just love to have some smug Microsoftie drop by your support thread to spread the One Microsoft Way?

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  3. Stop tagging all MS-related articles defective... by Dachannien · · Score: 3, Informative

    The term "Defective by Design" was specifically invented to describe products containing DRM, where the usability of the product is intentionally compromised in order to protect the profits of a third party.

    Yes, Microsoft has a lot of DRMed software, with Vista being the granddaddy of them all, but not everything Microsoft makes is defective by design. And in this particular case, the defect appears to be a bug rather than intentional anyway. So, please, save the "defectivebydesign" tag for situations where it's really warranted. Sure, it may be an amusing term, but when you use it where it doesn't apply, it waters down its meaning for the situation it was intended to be applied to: DRM.