One of those messages that you "forwarded" (which you should never do)probably had a nasty enclosed. It could be a trojan rather than a virus. Do you have an antispyware program on your computer like "Malwarebytes" its free. Suggest you download it, install it, update it then run it. Another good one which complements Malwarebytes is Spywareblaster, Its always running in the background and keeps these nasties from loading. You just have to update it weekly or so and its free as well. What service package of XP do you have (hopefully XPSP3) To find out right click on "my computer" select properties and that info should be in the box that appears

Me again, after posting the above, my wife informed me she was not getting Gmail into her Outlook Express. I found the following at Gmail. I have yet to set it up so not sure it works. Good Luck Smitty Using POP on multiple clients or mobile devices If you're accessing your Gmail using POP from multiple clients, Gmail's recent mode makes sure that all messages are made available to each client, rather than only to the first client to access new mail. Recent mode fetches the last 30 days of mail, regardless of whether it's been sent to another POP client already. In your POP client, replace 'username@gmail.com' in the Username field your POP client settings with 'recent:username@gmail.com'. Blackberry users will be signed in to recent mode automatically, without adding 'recent:'. Once you enable recent mode, please be sure to configure your POP client to leave messages on the server according to the instructions below: In Outlook, on the Advanced tab, check the box next to Leave a copy of messages on the server. In Outlook Express, on the Advanced tab, check the box next to Leave a copy of messages on server. In Apple Mail, on the Advanced tab, remove the check next to Remove copy from server after retrieving a message. In Thunderbird, on the Server Settings tab, check the box next to Leave messages on server.

You need to add something to get OE6 to spell check. Word would do it you had it but there are free ones around. Here's a link to one: Spell check at major geeks.

gmom, Here is the link that is most likely to save your day: www.OEHelp.com/OETips Scroll down to the red 'Update'. Have a read, but before you do anything else, download the free programme Outlook Express Quick Backup (don't worry about the command line instructions because you never use them - you just push the buttons). Before you run OE Quick Backup create a new Backup Folder (preferably on another drive) e.g. 'Current'. Run OE Quick Backup and select the 'Current' folder then click 'Backup All'. Once your latest data is safely backed up in 'Current' create a couple more folders e.g. 'Old 2008' and 'Old 2007'. This is because, if things work o.k., you are likely to end up with several .dbx files with the same name and you need to save them in different places - as explained in the next paragraph. So, to recover e.g. an old "Sent" email folder copy sent.bak and save it to your current identity as sent1.dbx and then backup that to "Old 2008". A quick word about .bak files - when Widows saves a later version of any file with the same name as the original one it changes the extension of the original file to .bak e.g. text.txt to text.bak and program.exe to program.bak. This gives you only one chance to 'easily' recover your data because if you save again using the same name then the first .bak file is overwritten - this is windows way of preventing your hard drive from becoming full with obsolete files. N.B. My Windows theory might not be 100% correct (I am both old and self-taught!) but the general principles are about right and it could save you from corrupting anything that you do manage to recover. Good luck. Colin Here is a link that might be useful: Outlook Express Help Main Index