Weekly interest and loan rates | Home values Northwest stock contest 2004 | Consumer affairs

Q&A / Patrick Marshall
If e-mail looks suspicious, it's smart not to open it

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most e-mailed articles

Q. From time to time I get "empty" e-mails in my Outlook Express inbox. The only thing they have is a received date and time, no sender and no subject. Any clue as to what these are or what is causing them? Do they represent any problem, or is this just another one of the many Microsoft faux pas?

— Lance Smith, Olympia

A. This is one of those questions for which there is no single reliable answer.

The cause may be a malfunctioning mail server, a malfunctioning spam server, a virus or a spammer confirming e-mail addresses. In the last case, if they don't get a bounce-back to the e-mail, they count the address as legitimate.

In any event, I'd delete without opening them. In fact, I delete all e-mails from senders I don't recognize if the subject line is suspicious or empty.

Q. When I purchased a new computer last August, it came with Windows XP, Microsoft Word and other programs. After using it awhile, a message would appear when I opened a document that I would need to buy Word or it would go to "reduced functionality."

Since I owned a legal copy of Word from my old computer, I installed it. Everything worked OK until last week, when the reduced-functionality warning cropped up. I ignored it until yesterday, when reduced functionality did go into effect. Microsoft tech help was no help.

— Wally Bartlow, Seattle
 

A. I assume either your software is a trial version or your software hasn't been "activated." With recent versions of Windows and Office, Microsoft has been requiring any installation of the software be activated either over the Internet or by phone.

For Windows XP and Office 2003, users will receive notification that activation is required each time the product is launched up to a total of 50 times.

After that, the product won't work.

If you want more information on Microsoft product activation, go to www.microsoft.com/piracy/basics/activation/.

This activation procedure, by the way, is intended to help prevent software piracy.

Q. At the first of the year, I got a new computer (Compaq Presaio 2182 laptop). I purchased a copy of McAfee for my virus protection.

Whenever I access the Internet, my incoming mail (POP3) gets changed to IP address 127.0.0.1, and I have to go in and manually change it to mail.bigplanet.com.

I have run complete scans and there is no virus detected. I have searched all files to find where 127.0.0.1 might be coming from but find nothing.

Do you have suggestions of how to correct this problem? Do you know what 127.0.0.1 points to?

— Richard Harward

A. As it happens, 127.0.0.1 points to you. Seriously. It's a loopback network connection. In other words, if you go to 127.0.0.1, you're going to your own computer.

In fact, it's kind of a geek joke to tell inexperienced users to go connect to 127.0.0.1. Funny, huh?

Yes, it's possible that you have a virus that is automatically resetting your incoming mail server to 127.0.0.1, but it's more likely that your antivirus software is incorrectly configured.

Most likely, your antivirus software is set to scan e-mail as it downloads, but the process isn't set up correctly.

You'd need to contact McAfee for some real-time troubleshooting.

Questions for Patrick Marshall may be sent by e-mail to pmarshall@seattletimes.com or pgmarshall@pgmarshall.net, or by mail to Q&A/Technology, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.