OE refusing access to jpeg attachments

I've just received five different email jpeg attachment from family and friends through Outlook Express. One is an art illustration and the others are family photos taken at Xmas.

When I try to open them the paperclip is greyed out and won't open. When I click on the message it says "OE refused access to the following unsafe attachments in you mail:"

I have a virus scan an my computer and I trust the people I have received the attachments from.

One of these senders got back to me and advised: "For some reason my program thinks there is a risk that the jpeg is a virus. I know it isn't because it is just the picture I sent. If you find a way to get it to ignore the safety settings on that email, then it is safe to do so."

I am using Windows 98 and IE 6.0

I've received numerous attachments over the past few years and never had a problem till now.

Could someone please help me.

From within Outlook Express go to Tools>Options>Security Tab> and uncheck the box that says "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus"

Thank you ancharcyreigns. I took your kind advice and now my problem is solved.

Regards, Mooghaun.

Hi Anarchyreigns, I have the same problem as Mooghaun, but the Outlook Express security tab didn't have a checkmark in the option you mentioned. I think my problem is with my Macaffee Antivirus program. But I can't find anywhere in the Macaffee program where it gives me the option to accept what may be "unsafe" JPGs. Can you help me? Thanks.

I'm not sure anymore where that would be found in McAfee Antivirus since it's been a long time since I've used it. I switched the the free AVG and never went back to any other AV program.

However, you might want to check the McAfee help files and if that doesn't work check McAfee site. They should have a trouble shooting section somewhere.

If all else fails, someone on this site who is using McAfee should be along shortly to help.

Dave Miller--What version of IE are you running? You did not by any chance have IE6 and revert to IE5?
Someone over on LurkHere forums has that message in IE5 after having uninstalled IE6. The setting is on the IE6 Security tab as anarchyreigns has said. But there is no box to check/uncheck on IE5's Security tab, so it seems that particular IE6 Registry setting did not uninstall. No one has found a solution yet, though I am not sure if they tried reinstalling IE6 and then uninstalling again.
Does your error message mention OE, like Mooghaun's did? If so it would seem the problem is with OE and not some other program like ZoneAlarm or antivirus.

I'm back again with another related problem. Earlier, anarchyreigns told me how to open the attachments that OE was refusing to do. This worked fine.

However I had another attachment sent last night which was a book cover. When I tried to open it in Outlook Express, I got some kind of file download box. I clicked ok and saved it. I then tried to open the file from OE and the download box kept flashing repeatedly, about 2-3 flashes per second. It wouldn't stop flashing. I then went into My Documents where I'd saved the file and the same thing happened when I tried to open it.

I did a thorough scan, a defrag and a virus-scan, then disabled the virus-scanner. In both OE and the saved file the result was the same.

I next sent the email attachment to myself at another address and things fared no better.

This file is from trustworthy source but has it been corrupted in some way and is that why it won't open or is there something else I could do to open it.