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.

Comments

trail of tears?

[Raab]

isnt the term 'trail of tears' a bit extreme for some lost email?

This is just another in a long series of failues

[jmorris42]

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.

PST file

[pe1chl]

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.

Re:PST file

[gilroy]

I'd wager your experience is close enough to being unique as to make no difference. Generally, stuffing everything into a monolithic file makes the data less accessible, less stable, and even less searchable. It does help Microsoft hide features and implementation details from competitors and it does make the mail program more mysterious (driving more users to paid solutions for problems). But in terms of convenience for the user, it gives bupkas.

Re:So what exactly is the problem?

[TerminaMorte]

The problem is not that a single email was moved, but that the entire mailbox was quarantined and that the user was not told about it. RTFA.

Re:So what exactly is the problem?

[earnest murderer]

Precisely. For that matter, considering the target audence the concept of a Log file as notification is not only ineffective but probably offensive to most. Of the people I know who might use this product, every single one of them would have ended up in a shop and paying a lot of money to have a tech figure it out. Or more than likely paying them to re-install Windows and hope it didn't happen again.