Outlook Irritation

[Kro]

Hi All,

Recently switched to Avast! and must say, I am impressed!! I love it!!

However, noticed a certain change in my Outlook though that irritates the crap out of me. Not sure if its Avast! but please help.

I noticed after I installed Avast!, my sent items are no longer marked as read but remain bold indicating that they are unread The only way I can solve this is if I close Outlook and reopen it.
I am using Outlook2003 with Avast!4.7 Professional Build 4.7.942, VPS file version 000719-0

Please help!!
Thanks

[Lisandro]

my sent items are no longer marked as read but remain bold indicating that they are unread The only way I can solve this is if I close Outlook and reopen it.

But, are the messages being sent after all or not, they remain in your outbox?
Strange, I never saw this behavior of the Sent items folder...

[Kro]

Hi Tech,

Yup, the messages are being sent and are no longer in the Outbox but still remain bold in my sent items.
Strange indeed.

Thanks

[Kro]

I have also posted this thread on Scalix (our email server provider)

This is what they have to say:

http://www.scalix.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=28732#28732

Any comments?

[alanrf]

I hope that you will forgive me for thinking that this is indeed a very, very minor irritation. Is there some other inconvenience about the items appearing as bold other than it irritating the crap out of you?

I could understand the concern in an Inbox ... but in a Sent folder? 

If it bothers you ... then turn off outbound scanning ... frankly it is of very little use to you at all; your recipients should be scanning their incoming mail whether you claim to have scanned it or not.         

 

[aetco]

I have this same problem.  We are also using scalix, however, we have Avast! ADNM.  The problem we see ( 100 users ) is that the INBOX cannot mark items as read, thus they stay bold.  This is more than a minor inconvenience, since we cannot tell which emails we have responded to, and which are new.  If I close outlook and reopen it, the problem will disappear for a random amount of time, but it always comes back.

I've been told on the scalix forums to disable Avast!'s outlook scanning, but I'm not sure that is such a good idea.  We do use ClamAV on the MTA, but I'd still rather have the problem fixed, and have two AV email scanners than just the one.

I've also been told this is a problem /w NOD32 as well.

Any advice?

[alanrf]

aetco

is the Outlook version used at your location also 2003?

Do you have as a default "scan archived messages on open" set?  If you do, does it alleviate the problem if turned off?

[Kro]

Hi Alanrf,

I have tried switching off the function mentioned and does not work on my side. The only other way that I've found to work is if I switch off the entire Outlook Plugin.  According to Scalix, so long as my resident scanner is on, the Outlook Plugin is overkill however seriously debating that. Can any of the Avast Support guys confirm that?

I understand what you are saying with it being a minimal thing if the sent items are flagged unread however what I'm worried about is if this might be some kind of bug in the software? And it might lead to the stuff happening with Aetco which I seem to remember being reported with a few of my users(2-3 cases).

Thanks

[alanrf]

The whole point of scanning email inbound is that it prevents infections from ever making it to your message store.  It is far better to prevent it getting into the message store in the first place than detect it once it is there.  Once the infection is in the message store there is the risk of it being detected there and the whole message store being quarantined or potential damage to the message store by an effort to excise the infection from the message store by an anti-virus program.  These are the points being missed when you are told to just turn off the plugin. 

The Outlook plugin is definitely the recommended method of scanning email when using the Outlook program.  If the plugin is not used then, depending on the type of email accounts being used, scanning of the mail might still be done using the Internet  Mail provider of avast.  This scan will work for regular POP/IMAP/SMTP mail accounts in Outlook but will not work for any secured access (using SSL/TLS connections) - this is of course where the great advantage of the plugin exists - it is totally independent from the connection.   

The concern about mail remaining marked unread in the Inbox is very understandable.  Hopefully the avast team might have some comments on how the plugin could be involved in the observed problem.