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Windows Live OneCare Can Eat Your Email
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.
isnt the term 'trail of tears' a bit extreme for some lost email?
And just remember, this is the same development house that the whole world seems to have no problem with the thought of giving root acces to their machines so they can keep them 'safe.'
If those idiots don't screw the world up by their own incompetence first they are going to get Windows Update 0wn3d and allow someone malevolent to wreak even worse havok on the world.
Seriously, I can't understand how any Microsoft product is permitted to be used in any role where failure isn't an option. Finance, military, medical, etc should have imposed a ban a decade ago, forbidding the stuff from even being connected to a network port inside the secure inner firewall. Instead we are installing the stuff into the engine room on our warships, giving it sole control of the propulsion system.
This is insanity on a global scale. A lot of people even seem to understand the danger yet are too afraid to speak up loudly enough to be heard.
Democrat delenda est
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to put all mail, including not only INBOX but also all extra folders, in a single file?
At least other MUAs usually have a separate file for each folder.
Yes, this is off-topic. Yes, OneCare sucks if it deleted someones email.
If you don't backup your data you will lose it someday. It's not a question of "if" it is "when". Your hard drive will eventually crash!
I feel so sorry for people that encounter this. My business provides remote backup via the web & we try to help people prevent events like this, but it doesn't matter. I think all of our remote backup customers have previously experienced data loss.
A virus scanner found an infected file and put it somewhere safe. It is in the logs so you can find out what happened.
Yes it is not very userfriendly but it sounds to me a bit like you complain that the fireman who got you out of burning building bumped you against the doorframe and now you got a sore toe. Cry me a river.
Should infected files NOT be moved just because they belong to a certain program?
I could understand the upset if it had moved a critical system file and brought the whole machine crashing down but that is now what happened.
Would it be as bad if a virusscanner moved a document because it was infected?
Truly this to me sounds like the conflict that arises between making software actually do anything and some users who expect computers to work by magic. Sorry, they do not.
Maybe MS virusscanner should know about special files, especially those belonging to its own products, maybe it should be capable of handling these files securely without having to move them. Perhaps.
It is not like the email disappeared. The file was moved. Move it back, and voila, all is restored. (I am guessing here, this is how it works on unix mailboxes anyway.)
Yes, perhaps the virus scanner did NOT report it clearly what it had done (more likely, the user in question simply did not read the log) and perhaps a proper virusscanner by MS should be able to handle the insides of a MS file and clean it on the spot, not have to move the entire file. BUT if this happened on a unix I would find it perfectly acceptable. Then again, I read logs.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
use Thunderbird instead....
Actually, the idea of storing all email in a huge single file is beyond stupidity.
Of course, many modern viruses send the mail from an infected machine, from someone you know, sending viruses to the accounts of addresses on that machine. The approach has certainly been around for decades and remains in wide use.
And Microsoft taught people, for years, to click on random URL's in emails and random attachments to get all those "features". So your advice to "modern users" is in fact in diametric opposition to Microsoft's historical policies, and is in fact impossible to meaningfully. It's frankly easier to not send attachemnts and always send URL's, except that Microsoft's history of auto-flagging URL's as clickable links has encouraged people not to actually check the contents of the link, but to assume it's usable. It is, in fact, Microsoft's own fault for adding "features" in the face of glaring security holes.
Maybe you'll start backing up your important data too?
Christ, what a bunch of idiots, especially the 'business' folk without a backup regime.
I fail to understand the value in getting rid of these old emails, it takes time to purge things no longer useful more time and effort than archiving them. Personally my online email archive goes back 3 years and I have off line storage back to the 80's and see no reason to spend the time to sort though them for the few potentially needed ones rather than just archiving out the data. I would also have to say that keeping everything to one cd or even one DVD would require deleting all the pictures and video I have of my son and frankly there is absolutely no probable reason I would ever part with those.
I am sure if I lived in my parents basement, had no particular relationships with anybody, worked at walmart and never went anywhere I could fit anything I would want to archive onto a CD otherwise people would like to document there life for themselves and others. While this may not be your situation it would seem you have little that you would like to retain and a lot of time on your hands to sort though things to dispose rather than do new things.
No sir I dont like it.
so effectively this means, that one care is everything but enterprise ready...
/troll
or can you imagine a serious company (serious companies don't give admin access to their workers) to send a technician to EVERY WORKER who just RECEIVES an email with a virus infected file to recover his inbox from quaranaine?
hey, why not piss off vista using companies by sending emails with attatched virusses (or was the plural virii?) to all their workers? man, if every worker loses all his emails multiple times or technicians have to be sent to every worker over and over again........ this might get LOTS of comanies REALLY mad and they might ditch vista and give linux a try - or at least other companies that stick with XP so far might hear of this and back off from a switch to vista...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes