Pop server setting changing in Outlook Express

[zcacogp]

Chaps,

A quickie.

Ma and Pa zcacogp came to visit last weekend, and mighty fine it was to see them too.

Pa's PC was acting strangely, so he put it in the car and bought it along for me to look at. And I didn't like what I saw ...

Dell desktop Intel 2.6 gig processor, 256meg RAM. Win XP home. Office 2000. Nothing unusual software-wise at all.

But it was running like a stone snail set in concrete. www.trend.com did a virus check and came up clean, as did a McAfee virus scan.

Then I discovered that his eMail client (Outlook Express) was doing some very strange things. He uses claranet as his ISP, via dial-up. And the pop server set in Outlook Express was 127.0.0.1, NOT pop.clara.net, as it should be. Very peculiar. I changed it for him, then re-booted the machine. Only to discover that it had changed back to 127.0.0.1 ...

Very odd, thought I, what do we do about that. So, I set up another eMail account on Outlook Express, with the correct server settings, and re-booted it. Lo and behold, that ALSO changed the pop server address to 127.0.0.1.

So, re-inserted the disk that came with the machine, and re-installed windows (note - only re-installed it, didn't format the HDD and start from scratch totally.) And this DIDN'T solve the problem.

Eventually discovered that Outlook (not OE) was immune from the problem so migrated all the mail across, and told Pa to use this instead.

However, I am not happy with this, and am seriously wondering what is up with it. Anyone any ideas?


Oli.

[agent006]

Sounds like a spyware problem. Try the usual Adaware, spybot and MS anti spyware, see what they find.

[aldi]

What has he got in the way of security software running?

[BliarOut]

Mailwasher or some other legit e-mail filtering software can do this IIRC. Does he have any anti-spam software running?

[zcacogp]

Agent 006 - Good idea. I did try the on-line one from trend.com, and it just found the usual collection of cookies.

Aldi - Erm ... McAfee and the usual Win XP SP2 stuff (namely, not great.)

BlairOut - good point. He does run the McAfee anti-spam thing (and I loathe it.) Would this explain it?

Also, how does this work then? How does the machine at 127.0.0.1 (or wherever) get his eMail from clara?


Oli.

[BliarOut]

McAfee gets mail acting as a POP client from Clara, spam washes it and then acts as a POP server for Outlook or whatever.

If you type

telnet 127.0.0.1 110

from a command prompt it will connect to the local POP server (McAfee or whatever) and give a prompt that says "user" or similar if the machine is running a POP sever of some description.

If it say's "can't connect" then the machine isn't running anything on port 110 (The POP3 port)

HTH

[Mr E]

zcacogp said:

Then I discovered that his eMail client (Outlook Express) was doing some very strange things. He uses claranet as his ISP, via dial-up. And the pop server set in Outlook Express was 127.0.0.1, NOT pop.clara.net, as it should be. Very peculiar. I changed it for him, then re-booted the machine. Only to discover that it had changed back to 127.0.0.1 ...

Oddly enough, my old mans system was doing *exactly* the same with outlook express. I looked at it for about 3-4 hours and concluded that it was a genuine, honest to goodness outlook express bug.

I submitted a bug report and switched them to Thunderbird.

They have had no further issues.