I am using Microsoft Outlook and running on Windows XP. My mail is inundated with junk mails. I mark them as junk, but is there any way I can block them? Hope you can help — 100 a day is the average, and this is a company email address.

There's one rule that I follow, which I believe helps to keep the amount of spam that I receive on my primary address to a minimum: whenever I have to fill in an email address anywhere on the internet, I use an internet email address such as a Yahoo or Gmail address.

The theory behind this is that if the spammers intercept that address on the internet, they're welcome to spam that address to pieces, because I don't use it. Call it a spam-lure if you want.

Of course, this is not a 100 percent effective and you can expect your primary email address to get spammed at some point. So lets look at how to combat that...

Microsoft Outlook comes with a built-in junk mail (also known as "spam") filter that moves all the mail it considers to be junk into the junk mail folder.

This is obviously the safest way, as opposed to Outlook just deleting the mail when it arrives, to ensure that you don't accidentally lose legitimate email that Outlook considered to be junk.

So I suggest using this filter, but also doing the following:

1. Keep Outlook updated so that its spam filter has all the latest information;
2. Setting up mail rules; and
3. Install a third-party spam filter.

Activate Outlook's junk mail filter

First things first — if it's not yet running, turn Outlook's built-in junk mail filter on:

1. Open Outlook.
2. Go to "Actions" — "Junk E-mail" — "Junk E-mail Options".
3. Under the "Options" tab, make sure the "High" option is selected.
4. Below it you will also see a block that you can tick if you want Outlook to permanently delete all email it considers to be junk, instead of moving it to the junk email folder. Be very careful before you make use of this option, because legitimate email could also disappear — and you won't even know that you received it! So rather leave this block unticked.
5. Click "OK".

Keep Outlook updated

Windows XP should automatically be updating all your Microsoft software as and when new updates become available. Here's how to check whether Windows Update is set up to do so:

1. Click on "Start".
2. Click on "Control Panel".
3. Click on "Security Center". A new window opens up.
4. On this new window, click on "Automatic Updates".
5. Another window pops up. Make sure that the option next to "Automatic" is selected.
6. Click "OK".

You can also run Windows Update manually:

1. Click on "Start".
2. Click on "Control Panel".
3. On the left, under the "See Also" header, click on "Windows Update".
4. This will open your internet browser and load a Microsoft update website.
5. Follow the instructions on the screen.

Setting up mail rules

This is a bit of a roundabout way of doing it, but if you get the same junk email from the same sender, or with the same subject line, or with the same words in the message, then you can set up a rule in Outlook that will automatically delete any email that meet these criteria.

To do so:

1. Open Outlook.
2. Go to "Tools" — "Rules and Alerts..."
3. Under the "E-mail Rules" tab, click on the "New Rule..." button.
4. Follow the instructions of the wizard carefully, making use of either a template for the rules, or specifying your own criteria from scratch. If you're overwhelmed by the options, then start with a template and take it from there.

This is not the best option in the long run, because you might have to do this over and over and over, but if the filter doesn't pick up a specific, pesky spam mail, then this might be the only way out. This option also deletes the email immediately, without moving it to the junk mail folder first.

Install a third party spam filter

There are quite a few third party spam filters available on the web — some free, some not so free. Have a look at this article for a list of the best ones. I tried Cloudmark Desktop for the trial period and it seems to be working well.

Unfortunately spam is something that will always be a frustration until the day that spammers themselves are stopped for good. Until then, implement all these things mentioned above and your spamming ride might at least become a little softer.

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