[xrp]

Accepting default settings = stupid users.

Your Pinto comparison is rather poor and invalid.

[Jeff Chandler]

Most viruses are written for Word, Outlook, and Outlook Express. Since the Outlook mail clients use Internet Explorer for their display windows, a virus could be sent as an attachment, and an embedded script in the message could open the virus, which then does what it wishes to your computer before sending replicates of itself to every name in your Outlook address book.

If the virus is a very recent variant, no virus protection program would recognize it. Your only protection would be a program such as Hacker Eliminator.

All my computers run on MS OSs, but I no longer use MS mail clients because they are too darned vulnerable.