The patch "by no means solves the problembut it helps to neuter a vector of spread."

In the ILOVEYOU incident, the original worm -- contained in an e-mail -- used a bit of wordplay to convince the reader to click on a Visual Basic Script attachment labeled "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs". Once opened, the attachment accessed the user's Outlook address book and sent mail to every address. In addition, the worm could spread through Internet Relay Chat and deleted several different multimedia files types.

Warning dialog box
"This is an extension of an update that we made available last year," said Lisa Gurry, Microsoft Office product manager. That patch, created in response to the Melissa virus, required users to save certain file types to the hard disk first. Microsoft hoped that doing so would cause users to look more closely at what they were opening.

In addition, whenever another program attempts to access the Outlook address book, the patched version of Outlook will prompt users with a warning dialog box. The patch causes Outlook to similarly prompt the user when a program attempts to send an e-mail on the user's behalf.

Finally, the update will cause Outlook to operate as a "restricted" Internet zone with scripts disabled -- the highest security setting allowed by Internet Explorer.

The greatest problem may be getting users to update their software

Home users more savvy?
Most people don't bother to patch their systems

Microsoft, however, has high hopes that home users as well will be more savvy this time around.

"With each more virus that hits, and the greater the damage is becoming, people are becoming more aware of protecting themselves," said Microsoft's Gurry.