Microsoft Office Outlook emailer pop-up

Factual Questions
1

At my work computer I [and others in the department] are getting an annoying pop-up.

"A program is trying to access e-mail addresses you have stored in Outlook. Do you want to allow this?

If this is unexpected, it may be a virus and you should choose “No”

[checkbox] Allow access for [pulldown menu varying from 1-10 minutes]

[yes] [no] [help]"

It started a few weeks back, and the ITS at work are baffled.

Anybody know what the heck this is and how to disable it?

MAybe a linky to the Micro$narf online infoblurb about it?

2

If this is unexpected, it may be a virus. You should choose no.

What version of Outlook is it? Was a service pack recently installed? Is there something you are consistently doing when it pops up?

3

Hm, I work in customer service in a service broker situation [ah, hell. I work for Oakleaf Waste Management, I get paid to talk trash :smiley: ] The way we are set up is the main database is in Access, and when we do certain things [like queue a call log to certain departments or fax using satisFAXion through office and outlook] it automatically generates emails. This is what is triggering the popups, it isnt a virus. I would assume that corporate geeks run updates to wincrap as required, and we are pretty much not online for the most part. I have one of the very rare non-it internet enabled computers at work and only use it on 3 or 4 fairly restricted sites for special projects - at our level we get pretty much no noninternal email. IT is pretty scrupulous about virus checking and protecting the system, almost anally so.

I am thinking it is someting in the registry, which might mean a service pack issue. This silly popup is exclusively an issue with the net satisFAXion and queue notifications that are automated in our work setup.

4

That behavior is a feaure of Outlook designed to prevent malware from mining your address book / Contacts for addresses to propagate itself to.

This Microsoft KB details what’s going on http://support.microsoft.com/kb/262631/. Scroll down about 2/3rds to the “New Programmability Behavior” heading.

This has info for your IT folks on how to make setup changes that may resolve your issue http://support.microsoft.com/kb/263297/EN-US/.

I say “may” because as I read it, the behavior cannot be turned off if you’re using Outlook as POP3 client (ie get your mail from an outside ISP). Your Outlook must be connected to a central Exchange server to adjust the behaviors.

If you are using POP3, more research by your IT folks might be able to find a way to do what you want, but I’m not optimistic.

5

OOOo =) thanks=) we aren’t using POP3 so there is hope=)