I set up my new Dell Inspiron 3847 (PC desktop) on April 5. My Outlook 2013 e-mails look fine when I send them, and in my sent box. But sometimes the recipient sees part or all of my message 10 times normal size (for example, 100pt Arial, not 100pt). Sometimes
it looks OK to the recipient, but in the Reply to me, my original message has something huge. Sometimes the problem doesn't show up at all until there's another round of replies--and always in an earlier message, not the latest reply. Sometimes it's only a
line space below the greeting; sometimes it's one word (my hand-typed, not formatted, signature, or "From:" in the From/To/Subject lines); sometimes it's one paragraph (the 4th, in my message below a friend's reply, today; other times, it could be the 7th);
sometimes it's an entire message.
I read in an MS VIP website that it could be the e-mail antivirus scan in my security software, because an MS update sometime ago (which caused a change in mso.dll) causes some companies' e-mail scans to drop the decimal point, so that 9.0pt reads as 90pt.
That website said it affects the sender's e-mails (true in my case), so recipients can't change this, but the sender can disable that add-on--not the whole security software, just the e-mail scanning part, which she said isn't essential.
But I'm having additional problems--again, very inconsistently, with no apparent pattern: 1. At least one recipient reported that my 12pt Times New Roman arrived at his in box as 14.5pt TNR--not the same, but not 10 times the size. 2. I send my e-mails single
space, with one space between paragraphs; sometimes they come back, below the Reply, with extra spacing. I checked, and it seems that the paragraph formatting changes so that there's extra spacing added Below each paragraph. But the original message might
otherwise look normal--no huge type--at least until a second exchange of replies. 3. At least a couple of times, when I highlighted the bigger spacing between paragraphs noted in no. 2 here, I saw that in a 10pt Arial 3-paragraph message, the 2nd line space
was still 10pt Arial--but the 1st, below the 1st paragraph, was suddenly 12pt TNR.
There may be other problems, but these are what I noticed. My security software company is Total Defense (through my cable company), and a technician there insisted it's a settings problem that only Microsoft can fix. A Dell technician last Wednesday remotely
reinstalled my Outlook software from the MS website (using my product key) and promised that would solve the problem--but, of course, it didn't. Another Dell technician on Thursday remotely changed various settings in my Outlook (and maybe elsewhere), including
disabling my security software anti-spam filter (but is that the same as the antivirus e-mail scan?), and promised it would fix the problem. Um, no.
A Google search turned up many similar complaints, though mostly that's a zoom problem (not mine, it seems--my messages always go out looking fine to me; it's the recipient who sees a problem--sometimes--or I see one in my message only below the reply, or
the 2nd reply, or the 4th. (Or the error can be in the reply instead--like a huge "From:" in the first reply to my e-mail. But never in anyone's new message to me.) But I haven't found any suggested solutions yet, except for the MS VIP's one about disabling
the security software e-mail scan. And she mentioned that only in connection to the 10-times-size problem, because the decimal point gets misread.
One other thing: I needed to replace my much-missed Windows XP and Office 2003 before MS stopped supporting them, so I had to take what was immediately available (including Windows 8.1, not 7). Dell insisted that I had to have McAfee in the PC for a 30-day
trial. I immediately uninstalled it and installed Total Defense (and no, I didn't go on the Internet or set up my e-mail accounts again until it was installed). McAfee is gone from Control Panel. But I've been told that these companies put stuff all over a
computer, so maybe part of it is still there somewhere, causing a conflict with my TD security software.
I'm not a techie. All I know is that I've been told--and assured--a lot of different things, and nothing has solved the problem.
Does anyone out there have any ideas?
And if it's a problem caused by the MS update (apparently KB2289158), any idea why MS hasn't issued a patch yet? Is this just MS's arrogance unless huge numbers of customers are affected by one of its beta testings sold widely as new software?
Help!
Richard Central Jersey