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When is a Virus Fix Not a Virus Fix? The answer is when it’s a virus itself. In recent years we’ve all become much more conscious about the ways in which we can infect our computers with a virus or worm or Trojan Horse. This has caused the authors of these malicious programs to look for new ways to spread their work. Lately, they’ve begun disguising their code as messages from ISPs and Microsoft. Usually the message appears looking very official, sometimes even on what appears to be company stationery. Whether it points out a crucial flaw in your operating system or rampant spam flowing from your mailbox, the message talks about some problem with your computer. It also offers the solution to your problem or vulnerability in an attachment that has been provided for you. That should always be the give away. Neither your ISP nor Microsoft will ever send you an email with an attachment. The attachment is actually the file that will launch the virus attack on your computer. As always, never open an attachment that you didn’t expect to receive.
Is Your Computer the Source of Virus Attacks? A number of people have been calling in to report that others have received infected emails from their computers and they need help removing the virus. They’ve been very faithful about keeping up with their antivirus updates, have enabled auto-protect, and they are good about scanning weekly. When we scan their machines we find no virus present. So, what’s going on? Many new viruses are working to spread and cover their tracks. To accomplish this, they often grab an email address from the inbox of the infected computer and use that as the “From” address on the outgoing, infected file. Spoofing the address allows the virus to propagate longer since the person with the infected computer doesn’t know about the infection and no one is aware to tell them. The best that you can do is maintain the same level of care you have been. Update your virus definitions often, continue to auto-scan, and schedule weekly scans of your hard drive.
What’s This? I know it sounds a bit odd, but there are some people who, every so often, decide to poke around their hard drive to see just what’s there. On a Windows XP computer, one of the things they’ll find is a series of folders with names like $NtUninstallKB282010$. Files like this can cause some concern. What are they? Where did they come from? Can they hurt my computer? This isn’t some virus-thing, is it? Relax. When Windows downloads updates, it regularly keeps track of the important information about the changes incorporated by the patch. In many cases, you have the opportunity to come back later and remove the update if it’s causing you computing problems. These folders with the weird names actually contain the Uninstall files that Windows will need in order to remove the update. The next question, then, is how long you have to keep them. If you have plenty of room on your hard drive, you can keep these files indefinitely. If you’re starting to run short of room and really need the space back, check the date the folder was created [choose Details in the View menu]. If the folder is more than a month old, it’s probably safe to remove it. You can usually bet that if an update was going to cause you problems, you would have known within the first month after you installed them. |
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