Outlook 2003 Signatures

skopelman · Joined: Dec 30, 2003 Posts: 19

Hi. I have a very baffling question about removing a signature that I cannot remove in the normal way in Outlook 2003. This signature was created somehow so that after the signature is received and when one hovers his mouse over it, it requests one right-click it in order to download any pictures---something we see all the time on a website. The text appears to be wrapped in a gray background color. I do not know how to get rid of it since attempting to remove it in the normal way does not even show that the signature was created at all. My thoughts are that it is web-based, and I do not at all remember how I created it.

Thanks.

FormalDaHyde · Joined: Jan 02, 2005 Posts: 1511

could it be a BrowserHelperObject (BHO) type download that is some sort of adware?? You may have been low-level hijacked if you did not give permission to some rogue utility to install itself inside of outlook!

Programs such as FREEware Anti-Virus proggie AVG (grisoft.com), can add a sig line at the bottom of your emails, have you tried that at all??

Have you tried adding a real signature in the options (Outlook>>Tools>>Options>>MailFormat>>Signatures) to see if it even blocks the real signature lines???
Can you also see if creating another user (with same POP3/SMTP) pauses the same problem?

Let us know more details and maybe we can assist more!

skopelman · Joined: Dec 30, 2003 Posts: 19

Thank you for responding. I have successfully created many signatures, and have successfully removed them all. This one however does not even show up either when editing or removing. I do recall creating it, either from Tech Republic or Lockerknome, but I do not remember excactly where.

I am very security-conscious and have no spyware or viruses, unless it could be a rootkit, however it is a newly, formatted XP box. I definitely remember creating the gray-colored, wrapped, retangular taxtbox around the text, and I believe it was designed to be web-based. This is the reason that hovering the mouse pointer over it says to right-click it and choose to download pictures. In fact, when I do, it does exactly what it is supposed to do. Regedit does not give a shadow of a clue regarding the value of the signature, either when I type the word "signature", or type the text I used to create it. It may have been an add-on feature for Outlook, but I cannot identify one from the many I have searched through.

I am curious before I create a new user as you suggested, what outcome this would have, if any, in restoring a blank signature in the original user's account---even if it were to have a global effect? My gut tells me i can find it in the registry if I knew the right name to look under, but i don't. Also, I used HijackThis and found one "nasty", which I deleted. It had to do with a Websearch ???.

Thanks.

xavierx · Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 5427

You might want to try this. It has a lot of information about where signatures and settings are stored, and some registry info at the bottom.

skopelman · Joined: Dec 30, 2003 Posts: 19

First let me thank each of you who took the time to research this problem. I am grateful.

I have finally found the answer. It was my own short-coming that created this mess in the first place, but fortunately I right-clicked the signature, which showed me the HTML code associated with it. In the code, I not only saw the signature I created, but the program that created it. Sure enough, I found the program---which I had installed on my own machine, reconfigured it to remove the HTML, and that did the trick. Now I have a blank page again, and was able to recreate my signature the normal way.

Thanks again,
Stoobee