Any good way of locking down outlook express...

[vi edit]

Here's the situation - my office is on win9X machines and the users use Outlook express 5.xx to check their emails. Some of my users are starting to get concerned about security on their local machines. (I want to move up to Win2k but that's a sensitive topic) As it is right now, somebody could come in on the weekends, turn on somebody elses computer, and then open up outlook express and view that persons email. Other than unchecking the "remember" password box, I don't see any way to lock down outlook express.

I've tried messing around with identities but they don't seem to be of much use. Is there any way to lock down the email folders and prompt for a password upon opening of outlook express without having to enter in their passwords every time they check their emails?

I thought about putting the outlook express icon in a protected folder using a little security utility and then having to enter a password to access the folder, thus making it hard to get into outlook, but that is sort of a hackjob.

To summarize, I want to be able to lock down outook express and the emails stored within it without asking for a password everytime outlook express tries to check the mail.

TIA - vi

 

[IcemanJer]

bump for a good question.
I wanna know too.

 

[pulpp]

this can be done with identities,

asuuming outlook express 5.0

goto file-identities-manage identities

make a new identitiy for each user you have and REQUIRE a password for each identity, also make one default identity that wont have anyone`s emails and make that one the default identity OE opens

now after creating each identity add account information for each user and such.

the most important part is, after someone uses thier account, THEY MUST DO FILE-Exit And Log OFF Idnetity, otherwise after you close and re-open OE it will go automatically for the last used identity without asking for pass assuming its the same user.

this will give you a fairly secure OE with different settings for each user, one thing to keep in mind though, is that OE sotres messages in its database files *.idx and *.dbx without any encrytpion, so if someone is determined to get a user`s email, they can always run the dtabase file through some ASCII filter and end up with all the messages text.

 

[MJT2k]

Have you thought of completly switching email software. You could use a groupware program like MS Exchange, Novell GroupWise, or Lotus Notes(???), but that requires them to log in every time. Since you are using OE I will assume you are using pop3 based email. OE does support IMAP mail but I am unsure how that works and the differences from pop3 mail. You could also try a web base email solution (GroupWise and Exchange are capable of doing that).

 

[vi edit]

Thanks for the replies guys. Yes, we do pop3 email for everyone. I'm currently trying to get a budget approved for a T1 and Small Business Server which includes Exchange. But for the meantime, this is all I have to work with.

pulpp, thanks for the tip about logging off instead of exiting out of Outlook once you activate profiles. I wasn't logging off, so that must be why it wasn't prompting me for a password.

I'll give it another go tomorrow when I get into the office.

Thanks for the replys so far!