My Outlook express stopped sending emails this week, it was working fine before, what happened?

I am using Outlook Express 6 and Windows XP, with Norton Antivirus, thanks for your help.
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There is some problem with how Norton antivirus and Outlook Express 6 work together, it's very well documented, but Norton has managed to keep this problem somewhat hidden from the public.

What is happening is that there is a setting in Norton Antivirus that automatically is supposed to filter in and outgoing emails, but it breaks on norton antivirus updates, I don't know why. The fix is to shut off the automatic screening of in and outgoing emails, this won't shut off your antivirus email protection, just this part of Norton antivirus.

Go to the Norton antivirus control panel, select 'Options', select 'Norton Antivirus', this opens up the antivirus configuration panel, select the 'email' option. To your right in the window you will see the following two check boxes:
Scan Incoming Email (recommended)
Scan Outgoing Email (recommended)

Uncheck the outgoing one, this will stop Norton Antivirus from using itself as your email SMTP server, which is where the problem is happening, but will still make your incoming emails protected.

Even if you uncheck both, your emails are still protected, just not quite as well as before. There does not seem to be an actual real fix to this, although Norton has a procedure on its website that claims to work, but we've found it tends to not work, read about it here:

help.stargate.net/mailnews/norton_antivirus.shtml

Norton itself on its website is not really admitting the problem, but all ISP's have this question on their websites, so I assume it's a very common problem and the solution I gave is the solution they all give. Even if you apply Nortons so called 'fix', it might, and frequently does, stop working on a new norton update.
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That fixed it, thanks a lot!!

My only question is this: if I turned off my outgoing email scanning, am I not at risk for something?
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No, not really, all you've done is prevent Norton Antivirus from using itself to be your email server, if they ever fix those bugs you won't have to do that anymore, this used to be a manual configuration, but they have hidden it from the users now, this is what is causing the problems, when computer software makers make their products more 'user friendly', it is almost always at a sacrifice of either performance or functionality.

Since Norton Antivirus scans all files entering your computer, including email attachments, all that is lost is the one case if you open a virus, it can now send itself to the people in your address book. However, the new www.zonealarm.com handles this fairly well, it blocks mass emailings from happening and alerts you to it happening, if you let it, the mass emailing goes ahead.

But really, most modern viruses of any decent quality usually have their own SMTP servers built in, so they aren't even using your email program or SMTP server anyway. Plus you still being protected from all incoming viruses, so it shouldn't be a problem in most cases.
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