Solutions: How to block an e-mail sender in Outlook Express

In a recent column, you stated that to block the sender (with Outlook Express), go to Properties, Details tabs, Message Source button, but did not state how to block from there. I tried it but couldn't find how to block from there.

You're correct — I forgot to mention that in my column. Thanks for the reminder. From the Microsoft Outlook Express menu bar, click Tools, Junk Mail options and then the Blocked Senders tab. Of course, you can also right-click the offending e-mail, select Junk E-mail, Add Sender to Blocked Senders List. But in the case where the "from" e-mail address listed is a phony address, you'll need to go to the Message source as discussed in the previous column and manually add it as described above.

Per your instructions in the Jan. 25 edition of the St. Petersburg Times, I tried to download the site you listed to check for malware. It would not continue the download. I received an error message saying "windows-kb890830-x64-v3.3exe is not a valid Win32 application." What is happening here? Is there something else I need? I am running Windows XP on my computer, have McAfee Antivirus protection and after running a scan on McAfee, no viruses were found. My computer is running slow, and I wanted a trusted site to download to check for malware.

You somehow mistakenly downloaded the 64-bit version. If you go to www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove and click on the "Skip the details and download the tool" link toward the top of the page, that should bring you to the correct download.

The file you want to download is windows-kb890830-v3.3.exe (as of this writing).

In your Jan. 25 article, you are recommending Microsoft Security Essentials. Always before you have recommended AVG. Does this mean you now believe Microsoft Security Essentials is better?

I think you've got the wrong guy. Although I've had a lot of readers over the years write in to say they were big AVG fans, I've always recommended either Symantec or Microsoft One Care.

I can't tell you the number of PCs I've seen that still had the old, nonworking version of the antivirus software that came with their system and was never renewed. There's no excuse for that now. Microsoft Security Essentials has gotten very good reviews, is self-updating and is what I recommend. And it's free.

Send questions to personaltech@sptimes.com or Personal Tech, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731. Questions are answered only in this column.