e-mail attachments

Does Avast 4.6 Home scan e-mail attachments when you open Outlook?

I have read you should save all attachments then scan them before opening; is this necessary with Avast 4.6 Home?

As far as I know (only use OE) Avast scans the files as they are downloaded, and also scans them as they are opened

Not when you open Outlook, only when you receive emails with attachments, so it doesn’t scan old/existing emails with attachments. If you happened to open one of these old emails then it may well scan it then (I don’t use Outlook, so I can’t say for certain).

It is a wise precaution not to open any file directly from an email regardless of the email program. Even though avast scans inbound email including attachments, what happens if it is a new undetected virus or adware/spyware ? Saving it to a folder on your HDD, ‘attachments’, etc. allows you to scan it with other security software, it also allows for upload to multi engine AV or malware scanners.

You would have to have an extremely high confidence in an email and the attachment to open it from the email and I don’t feel that confidence exists when it is so easy to fake who an email is from.