Many of the original variants are written for the challenge of it. Some people do write nasty ones without the intention of releasing them into the wild.
As it is, might I suggest a copy of NAV or McAfee with autoupdate set to download nightly? Failing that, if you're running OutHouse, set it to block certain file types (.bat .js .vbs, etc.) through the registry. OR, get something like StarOffice which will read the files (word, excel, etc) but, I don't believe, will run the embedded scripts.
Also, turning off the preview pain may help
E-mail me if you'd like details. pyro at comic-relief dot org
