Hi, i'm using win xp pro and outlook, office 97, zonelabs firewall. I'm also using a broadband router. I also use anti virus and ad aware regularly.

Been having some weird things going on with some rather important documents eg, large bits deleted, short letters turned into 500 page documents all with weird unreadable jumbled characters. Obviously this is a huge problem, and i am suspicious about it as it's the documents that are potentially important.

Also in outlook it keeps telling me i have one more unread e-mail message than i actually have.

Firstly i'm wondering if the outlook thing is a virus of some sort. As for the document tampering if that's the right word, i'm worried i've been hacked.
It's a stand alone machine also. Anyone else had problems like this? Any ideas what i can do other than just back up and stay the hell offline???
Also is there a way i can back up my e-mail messages?
appreciate any help thanks

you should upgrade to at least office 2000, if not XP. if you do that you should uninstall not upgrade the old version.

you can back up the e-mail messages by simply copying the .pst file to another location (while outlook is shut down), and you can also back up the account settings (servers, username, password) to an .iaf file.

note that if you will upgrade to office XP you may not use the exported account settings - Outlook in XP doesn't have that option.

Hi, well according to my pc i don't have any .pst files on it.

I'm talking about outlook express just to be clear.
cheers

You are behind both a hardware & software firewall, and, assuming your av is active (not just used as a scanner), it would be extremely difficult for "something" to hit you. But it sure sounds as if you were nailed.

We need some elaborations:

1. SP2?
2. What anti-virus do you have? Do you keep it pro-active? Did your last scan reveal anything?
3. What Spyware app do you have?
4. Is it Outlook or Outlook Express?
5. Is your browser working okay?

Answer these, as well as going to spywarewarrior.com.
Register, learn how to post a "hijackthis" log, and do so for evaluation.

if you use outlook express you should go to tools->options->maintenance->store folder. your data folder is shown there.

Convenient tool for your Outlook: "Contacts Collector".
ContactsCollector adds people you correspond with to your Address Book.
http://www.stanfordtrident.com/pro [...] Collector/
Dmitry