- Disconnection when checking email -

The common cause is that Outlook Express has an incorrect setting (this only affects people with up.net emails, if you have a web based email such as Hotmail or Yahoo, this doesn't affect you).
You need to make sure the setting:

"Hang up after sending and receiving"

is NOT checked. Otherwise everytime you receive email you'll be disconnected.
To uncheck this option, (in Outlook Express) go to the Tools menu. Select Options. In the Options window click on the Connection tab at the top of the window. You should now see that setting. Uncheck it. Click OK.

- Can't open attachments in Outlook Express -

This is a security "feature" of Outlook Express. If you don't have anti-virus I'd recommend keeping this option on. To turn it off, go to the Tools menu and click on Options. In the Options window click on the Security tab at the top of the window. You want to uncheck the option:

"Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus"

Then just click OK. Now you can open the attachment. Be careful though, especially if you don't have antivirus (that's up to date) as you could be installing a virus on your computer by opening the attachment.

Last Updated Tuesday, April 27 2010 @ 03:24 PM EDT