For some strange reason I had to send a message using Outlook Express 6 instead of my default client which is Microsoft Outlook 2000.
Anyway I just noticed that when I use Outlook Express the avast scanner doesn’t scan the message body, only the attachments, and yet when I use Microsoft Outlook 2000 it does scan the body of the message.
Is there any way I can make it scan all email message bodies when using Outlook Express?
I think I have fixed it by clicking on all files with the avast scanner settings scan created/modified files, and I saw that Drafts.DBX had been scanned, I also saw the system tray icon spinning when the body opened.
If you use the Internet Mail provider to scan mail received/sent through Outlook Express you would have no way of knowing that that avast scanned the message body separately from the attachments because emails delivered by the POP protocol are one continuous stream (that avast does know how to decode - body and attachments) but avast reports nothing other than it has scanned a given email. avast does not report the scanning of either the body or the attachments of emails received/sent whether it occurs in the Internet Mail provider for Outlook Express or for the Outlook/Exchange plugin of avast for Outlook.
I suspect that you are confusing the scanning of files in the Standard Shield with what happens in the Internet Mail scanner. The Internet Mail scanner is scanning an email stream - not files - and all the scanning is happening there “under the covers”. The Standard Shield reporting of file scanning is totally separate from and unrelated to the Internet Mail provider scanning of email streams.