After I installed SP2 upgrade.

[Phil]

Since I installed the SP2 upgrade to XP my e-mail has small squares with a
small red X scattered throughout the e-mails . This is true of e-mail I
downloaded prior to installing SP2 which was OK at the time of download.
Anyone know what has happened? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

Phil

--
"I LET MY MIND WANDER AND IT NEVER CAME BACK"

[Courtney]

Phil wrote:
> Since I installed the SP2 upgrade to XP my e-mail has small squares with a
> small red X scattered throughout the e-mails . This is true of e-mail I
> downloaded prior to installing SP2 which was OK at the time of download.
> Anyone know what has happened? Any help appreciated. Thanks.
>
> Phil
>

This is actually by design, not an error.

One sneaky way for ad folks to track what you are doing is to get you to
go to their websites. Hoping you'd click on crappy ad banners that you
probably blocked isn't working, so they use another trick.

They send you junk mail with pictures. The trick is to store the actual
pictures on their web site. When you email program displays your email,
it downloads the pictures from their website. Bam! The spammer now knows
that the email account is live and can now send you a crap load of email.

Outlook 2003 (not Windows XP) and Outlook Express (part of Internet
Explorer 6 SP2, not Office), now block these pictures by default.

Outlook Express: Tools, Options, Security. The checkmark in "Block
images and other external content in HTML e-mail" is what does the trick.

A better solution is to click on the bar at the top for each message
that you know is safe.

courtney sends....

[PA Bear]

Start here:

WinXP SP2: What's New for Internet Explorer and Outlook Express
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/ieoeoverview.mspx
--
OE6-specific newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlooke xpress

~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE), AH-VSOP

Phil wrote:
> Since I installed the SP2 upgrade to XP my e-mail has small squares with
> a
> small red X scattered throughout the e-mails . This is true of e-mail I
> downloaded prior to installing SP2 which was OK at the time of download.
> Anyone know what has happened? Any help appreciated. Thanks.
>
> Phil

[Alex Nichol]

"Phil" > wrote:

>Since I installed the SP2 upgrade to XP my e-mail has small squares with a
>small red X scattered throughout the e-mails . This is true of e-mail I
>downloaded prior to installing SP2 which was OK at the time of download.
>Anyone know what has happened? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

In SP2 a security setting has been made in Outlook Express to block
pictures in HTML email; these were being used by spammers and worse to
report home. If you have mail you are sure of, you can turn the setting
off in OE's Tools - Security, but I would turn it back on when not
looking at safe mail


--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8 bit)

[Phil]

Thanks to all for the info.

Phil
"Alex Nichol" > wrote in message
...
> "Phil" > wrote:
>
>>Since I installed the SP2 upgrade to XP my e-mail has small squares with a
>>small red X scattered throughout the e-mails . This is true of e-mail I
>>downloaded prior to installing SP2 which was OK at the time of download.
>>Anyone know what has happened? Any help appreciated. Thanks.
>
> In SP2 a security setting has been made in Outlook Express to block
> pictures in HTML email; these were being used by spammers and worse to
> report home. If you have mail you are sure of, you can turn the setting
> off in OE's Tools - Security, but I would turn it back on when not
> looking at safe mail
>
>
> --
> Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
> Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8 bit)