@Technical.
Many thanks for your quick reply.
My first attempt to have avast! check my emails was by using the wizard, (this is how the default pop and smtp entries were created in avast4.ini. It was when this method failed that I printed the instructions for Manual setting of mail protection and half succeeded! My outgoing mail is checked.
I am sure I have overlooked something very simple, so I will experiment further.
again, thanks for your advice.
regards
dafydd