Safety Of Opening Attachments

[Spencer]

I received some Trojan Horses a few months ago around the same time that I was downloading a lot of example spreadsheets from not only this forum, but a variety of others. Since then I have not downloaded any attachments for fear of harming my computer again. I don't know for sure where I aquired the Trojan Horses, but downloading a lot of spreadsheets was my only abnormal behavior at the time.

I have noticed that posters are required to .zip their Excel documents instead of attaching them in their native .xls formats. I know I have read somewhere that this is for safety reasons (i.e. viruses, malicious code, etc.). My question is that if I was to download and unzip someones attachment then how is my computer safer than if I downloaded their spreadsheet in the .xls format?

Are there any methods to safely scan spreadsheet downloads for harmful content before opening them? I really enjoy seeing other peoples work in the form of their spreadsheets. Backwards engineering their logic helps me to learn about this amazing program.

Thanks, Spence

[shg]

Your virus scanner will scan all attachments and downloads.

As a matter of personal practice, I disable macros in all downlods from people other than those I trust. Then I look at the maros, decide if they could be either destructive or annoying, and reopen them if I think they're OK.