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Pastimes : VIRUS ALERT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jERRY Ö¿Ö who wrote (31)	9/30/1998 1:09:00 PM
From: Fridrik Skulason	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 47

> You think that all you have to do is post something and I am corrected. As far as computer viruses are concerned, yes - I do. There are many fields I know nothing about, and you may well be able to correct me there, but I expect to be taken seriously when I am writing about this particular subject. > Yes, of course Word will open a .DOC file. I used the word text file but I thought you would understand that they are the same thing. Wrong. A Word .DOC file is a structured OLE2 file, which may contain various streams, macros, embedded objects, even executable files. A text file would be a simple "text only" (typically ACDII) file. A text file can never be virus-infected - a Word DOC file can. Big difference. > Word or Wordpad will open these files and display them. Note I said display and not execute. Wrong again. There is a significant difference between Word and Wordpad in this respect. Wordpad does not support/execute the viruses (nor does WordViewer)- only Word does. If you use Wordpad to view any Word files you receive in the mail you are safe. If you use Word, you are not. That is the point I have been trying to make - if your mail reader is configured to automatically run Word to display Word documents you receive in the mail, and you receive an infected Word document, you will probably infect your system. >You agree that data files can't harm your computer even if there is virus code in it so opening a data file with .doc or .txt in Word or Wordpad will be safe. Wrong again. Word documents (typically .DOC) are not simple "data files", as they can be virus-infected. Opening a virus infected Word document with Word will typically result in virus infection. Opening the same document with Wordpad will not. >Your Bio shows your company as Frisk software which I assume you own, so you should know the difference between an .exe file and a .doc file. I most certainly do. However, EXE files have nothing to do with the subject at hand - we are talking about infected WORD DOCUMENTS. >Now try sending yourself say a small utility file with an .exe extension and you will find that Word or Wordpad will not open it. And what does that have to do with it ? Again, I am not talking about mailing .EXE files as attachments - I am talking about mailing infected Word documents. >So now where are we? Waiting for you to admit you were wrong.