<p>Q. I received an email with an attachment that I need. The problem is that Outlook is telling me that it has blocked access to the following potentially unsafe attachments. I really need this file. Is there any way to retrieve it?</p><p>A. One of the most common delivery systems for viruses and trojans is email. And since this problem is so prevalent, Microsoft built protection in to the Microsoft Outlook application to prevent users from accessing potentially harmful files that may be sent to their email. This started with Outlook 2000 and continues on all the way up to the current version.</p><p>The problem is that Microsoft really has no way of telling of the particular file is actually harmful or not. It just looks at the file type, usually EXE and MSI files, and simply blocks it. Files like text documents, images and even movie clips are not considered harmful and are never blocked by this feature.</p><p>For the most part, this a good decision on the part of Microsoft. Sending executable files via email is a bad practice. By blocking access to this type of file the risk of getting a virus in your email is greatly reduced.</p><p><a href="http://blog.chron.com/helpline/2012/09/outlook-blocked-access-to-the-following-potentially-unsafe-attachments/">Keep reading...</a></p>