When/if a virus scanner is resident, will it not check all files on a computer as they are saved/closed/opened--regardless of whether or not they happen to be an email attachment? Then why is all that effort devoted to acommodating the quirks of various email software programs?

Regards,

yeah, it is strange to me also...
somehow the mass spread of worms and etc. are still in the company offices, hahahah.

My guess is that they try and control the spread of infected attachments, for example... lets say you have a resident scanner, and you recieve a forwarded mail full of jokes, you might open it, read it, have a good laugh, forward it to a few of your friends, and one of your friend doesnt have a resident scanner, or his/her resident scanner doesnt detect that particular virus... your friend might have a good laugh with the forwarded mail, but will pay dearly later on.... plus, I guess there are email based viruses such as the love bug.... so yeah... more protection is always good.... and besides... its better to stop a virus from entering your system rather than have the resident scanner detect it after its infected your files....

Hope I dint miss the point of your question

An other point is that some people don't like resident scanners, but choose to scan all incoming files instead (and from time to time scan their entire system).

Well, I guess I'm guilty of looking at it too narrowly--that's why most AVs have the option to let you turn off resident scanning if you want. Resident scanning does take some resources away. And, of course, email services are more concerned with scanning email than a resident option.

Thanks to all

Regards,