# †what †virus †do †i †have �

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-what-a-virus-a-do-a-i-a-have-a/207216>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 13, 2003, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-what-a-virus-a-do-a-i-a-have-a/207216 "2003-10-13T17:01:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![alterego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@alterego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alterego)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-what-a-virus-a-do-a-i-a-have-a/207216/1 "2003-10-13T17:01:34Z")

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This is getting annoying. Whenever I send an e-mail in outlook some of the letters are rand’ly replaced with this stupid “’”.

They don’t show up when I type, but the people who get my e-mails see them and when I look in my sent messages I see that they are all messed up there as well.

I can’t find anything on the net about a virus that does this.

Any ideas? (I manually inserted all these lol)

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-what-a-virus-a-do-a-i-a-have-a/207216/2 "2003-10-13T18:01:50Z")

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Save the email to the desktop and open it with Notepad or other text editor. What do you see?

Also, what character set are you using? Look in the email header and you should find something like  
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=“iso-8859-1”  
If you are using some weird charset, change it back to western European or whatever you intend to use.

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**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-what-a-virus-a-do-a-i-a-have-a/207216/3 "2003-10-13T19:45:33Z")

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Title edited for clarity.

- **xash**  
General Questions Moderator

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**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-what-a-virus-a-do-a-i-a-have-a/207216/4 "2003-10-13T22:13:17Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by duckofwindsor \*  
> **Sure sounds like a virus.**

Nope. It sounds like he has his character set messed up, just like sailor said.

Relevant quote:  
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by mere incompetence.

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**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-what-a-virus-a-do-a-i-a-have-a/207216/5 "2003-10-14T01:56:47Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by xash \*  
> \*\*Title edited for clarity.
> 
> - **xash**  
> General Questions Moderator \*\*

Uhh…sure thing, **xash**. Wh€âv€r you say.  
**alterego** , turn off all but plain ASCII text email.