Outlook Express: vanished body text

[webfusion]

OK, This one has me stumped. I tried several things already but all the text bodies in my Outlook 6 email client have vanished. (Windows 98)

1. Deleted all offline content files.

2. Is it possible that someone has figured a way to create a virus that goes into "Options/Maintenance/Clean Up Now" and then activates "remove Message bodies" (a feature that is supposed to save space) ?

What should I be looking for? Why the sudden strange behavior?

[webfusion]

Two variants of the W32.Beagle virus will cause the symptoms described. These two variants do not contain file attachments. When the email arrives at your computer, the body contains no visible information and the mouse pointer may continue to appear in the busy (hourglass) state for an extended period of time. The email contains a hidden line of code that tells your computer to connect to the computer that the email was just sent from. Your computer is then told to download the W32.Beagle virus from that already infected computer. Once the virus is downloaded onto your computer, it installs itself and continues to propagate across the Internet by emailing itself to everyone in your address book. Much more information can be found at:

http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=description&virus_k=101141

That's exactly what it looks like I have.

[Soapy Sam]

Oh my Ed!

Does this mean we have it too?

(Leaps to feet and runs into wall.)

Bummer. :(

Better warn the folk in your address list.

[glsunder]

Of course, scan your system, but if it comes up clean, you may simply have too many messages (OE can only handle so many). In that case, you could either delete some email (or archive by dragging them to a folder), or import everthing into another email app like thunderbird and use that.