-----Original Message-----
From: Castro, Edison M. (PCA)
[mailto:ECastro(_at_)NA2(_dot_)US(_dot_)ML(_dot_)com]
That is exactly the same way that all Windows virus work. As a Windows
user (as well as other OSes), I can say that people have to be
responsible
for their actions. Whenever you receive any Email attachment,
the only way
that attachment can produce any damage is if you run it.
At least in my copy of MS Word anytime I open a word document and it
contains
any macros, Word readily ask me if I want to allow the macro to execute.
Not only that, this version of Word (2000) is configured to only
ask me when
a signed (with a certificate of a trusted party) macro is included.
Suppose you made the mistake of opening a Word document with a VBA (Visual
Basic for Applications) script virus. (I did this once and I am sharing a
real-life experience.) The VBA script turns off the option that disables
automatically running scripts. I kid you not! Next time you open a Word
document that contains a script, you won't be asked whether you want to run it.
If you go into the options settings and set the option to disable running
scripts, you have done nothing, because the virus script runs when you close
the document and turns the option back off again.
At least not allowing macros to disable the don't-run-macros option seems
reasonable to me, but it seemed to have escaped the engineers who created
Microsoft Word.
Doug Sauder
Software Engineer
Broadsoft, Inc