Most revered, feared, and cantankerous ones, allow me to tell a brief virus story that happened today to me but that I think has ended successfully. On another list, I received this morning an e-mail response from a lady who does great, free look-ups, and I noticed that there was a second e-mail from this same lady with an identical "Subject" line as the first e-mail. The second e-mail contained only an attached file which I did NOT download because I didn't know it was coming and I didn't know what was in it. There was no text from the look-up lady indicating that she had sent it and no text identifying what was in the attachment. Her first e-mail contained no clue that she intended to send me a downloadable file. The attached file was named "Happy99.exe" (I've been told that viruses have the .exe extent, too), and I thought it odd to have received the attachment with no mention of it by the originator. I sent an e-mail back to the look-up lady who confirmed that she did not send me an attached file. The lady then called Microsoft support and found that this "Happy99.exe" was indeed a virus, and that Microsoft had published a description and most importantly a CURE on its support website. The most insidious characteristic of this virus is that it attaches itself to outgoing e-mail without the knowledge of the sender, and it looks like a follow-up message from the sender. Nice way to get around, huh. It starts doing strange stuff to your machine the second time it's executed. My computer was not infected with this virus even though I opened the e-mail to which it was attached. I was also not infected as the e-mail sat in the "old mail" queue after it had been opened. I eventually deleted the e-mail with virus file attached and have confirmed that my machine does not have the files the virus creates when it is downloaded. The key is DON'T DOWNLOAD an attached file if you weren't expecting to get one, especially if the filename ends in .exe, a bell-ringer for problems! Also, don't automatically believe that an attached file is OK because it came from someone you know. Before you download the file, confirm that your acquaintance actually sent you something. My first virus -- I shed a tear -- dodged the bullet. Could have been a lot worse. Thought you should know. Dan Hayden