This is a serious problem. My brother is in grad school, and his professor got very upset by it. He’s about to email in his Capstone proposal, and he can’t have this problem crop up again.
Here’s what happens. My brother writes a paper in Word. He does not use macros. He sends the paper through Hotmail as an attachment. Sometimes it’s fine. Other times, it says “The document you are opening contains macros or customizations. Some macros may contain viruses that may harm your computer.”
How does this happen? I am reading about the Melissa virus, to see if that may be the problem. Is there any other candidate?
I know my brother is not using macros. Is there any way a macro can be used “accidentally?” I know that’s a silly question, but is it possible he’s accidentally using a keyboard shortcut, or doing something else that adds a macro to his document?
Sometimes, something like Acrobat Writer will add a Macro to every document that you create in Word, even if you don’t use Acrobat.
If there are, you can disable Macros when the document is being opened, and still read the document, so it shouldn’t matter.
Thirdly, although this is far from a hard and fast rule, most Macro virii aren’t really problematic and don’t do all that much.
Finally, if you really want to be sure, run the document through Anti-Virus software (Norton or McAfee) and see if they think it’s clean. If it is, then whatever Macros are in the doc don’t matter.
A few years ago, the cause would have been clear: your brother is infected with a macro virus. Macro viruses are a thing of the past, but if your brother is running without antivirus, then it is possible to be infected. Have him go to http://housecall.antivirus.com to check.
The girl I share my work computer with uses Hotmail, and frequently gets word docs. Sometimes I have to log her out before I log in, and close all her stuff. I always get a macro warning when closing a Word doc if its been opened from Hotmail.
I think Hotmail does something with Word docs and macros.
Your brother should first Zip the file before he sends it, using a free Zip program like WinZip. Then Hotmail shouldn’t be able to add macros or anything like that. It will also make the file a little smaller.