One you shouldn't turn it completely off, but only the provider that scans the email, the Internet Mail provider, otherwise you are more vulnerable at these times.
What was the attachment ?
OE won't strip the attachment, it may stop you from opening it if it is one it considers could be harmful and by that it means the file is possible to infect not that it is infected. Tools, Options, Security, 'Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus.' You would be surprised what files it considers potentially harmful.
Multi-part emails on occasion are flagged as having an attachment, when in fact no attachment exists. If you dig into the message source (right click the email, properties, Details, Message Source) you may see if there was an attachment and what its name was or if it was just a multi-part email.
The attachments have been mostly "Forwards," but I recall specifically one with jpegs (photos). They are from probably 10 different senders; some TO a list of receivers; others just to me only.
How to I turn off the "provider who scans the mail" Do you mean my ISP BellSouth?
I never thought OE was ripping the attachments; I assumed Avast or Comodo was doing their job. All I know is most times when I let one through the attachments are gone or very garbled. This things change almost daily!
The last forward I received was caught by Comodo (anti-spam) and when I let it through ONLY the header was visible with this warning:
Multiple Content-Type header - HIGH DANGER!
Sender: Harry Halleck <yahoo.com>
Recipient: xxxx@bellsouth.net
Subject: Re: Comodo AntiSpam Alert from Barbara
Yes, most (but not all) are from Yahoo users. Many were forwards to multiple people.
Changes from my original post:
I'm not getting the same warning as at first which was a text and voice message with flashing yellow circle and AVAST message.
No more red Avast messages in my Inbox for 2 days.
Comodo is still catching some. Mostly from Yahoo.
Number of "stopped" messages has drastically reduced.
Thanks to all who have helped. I consider this still an open topic as not totally solved for me and others.
Barbara T.