Click OK to save your changes. After you change the file type associations, double-clicking one of these files or opening it from inside an Outlook message will display the file in Notepad. When you need to run one of these scripts, you can right-click it and choose Open from the popup menu. We are not tracking these applications, which you can find at your favorite Windows shareware download site. See To quarantine application file attachments with Microsoft Outlook 2000 VBA for sample code.
Some viruses use a double file extension, such as .jpg.vbs.
If Windows is set not to show the extension for known file types, the recipient will see the attachment listed as a harmless .jpg file, not a potentially dangerous .vbs file. While you're at it, you can also change the default action for .vbs files , so that they open in Notepad.exe, rather than run as scripts. If you are concerned about viruses that use Outlook to propagate, you may want to require confirmation of all outgoing messages that contain file attachments. Another approach is to set up Outlook not to send mail automatically. For Exchange Server users, this means setting up offline folders, working offline and synchronizing periodically.