Microsoft confirms OneCare zaps Outlook e-mail

08.03.2007
Microsoft Corp. has acknowledged that a bug in its Windows Live OneCare security suite has been causing users' e-mail to vanish from Outlook and Outlook Express.

A fix, the company said, is in the works and will be pushed to OneCare users next week.

The OneCare bug, first reported by users writing on a six weeks ago, seemed to be deleting Outlook and Outlook Express data files -- .pst and .dbx files, respectively -- after a malware scan.

"The program did a scheduled update and then did the normal scan on my hard drive," Kevin Kimp wrote in an e-mail to Computerworld. "The next time I opened Microsoft Outlook, I got a message stating that Outlook could not find the file outlook.pst. This program has done more damage to my computer and my business than any virus or spyware that I have ever had."

Other users reported similar behavior with Outlook Express.

As of midday Tuesday, no solution had been posted to the forum, even though one moderator noted that the same problem had plagued an earlier version of OneCare nine months ago.