Expert: Carolyn Meinel - 2/2/2008

Question
Hi,
When I open and then close a Microsoft Word file it disappears. Also happens to jpegs. I ran McAffee virus scan and it did not find anything. I had this problem about 9 months ago on two computers in my office. I had contacted at that time both symantec and microsoft. Symantec did a scan of the  computer over the internet and said it was a hardware problem and Microsoft checked the computer over the internet and said it was a virus. I backed up the data I had left, reformatted the hard drive, and then reloaded windows, my programs and data.
It was fine for 9 months and is now happening again. I have backed up my data. I am not sure if it is a hardware issue or a virus. If it is a virus I need to know how to eliminate it and protect against it.
Thank you!!!

Answer
If this is a virus, here's what will almost certainly work.

1) Download F-Secure's Complete Internet security suite, which offers a free thirty day trial: https://store.f-secure.com/cgi-bin/dlreg/ml=EN?ID=FSISTB&desid=TRIAL

2) Disconnect from the Internet.

3) Uninstall your current antivirus. This is absolutely essential because otherwise it and F-Secure will fight each other and might crash your computer. It isn't good enough to just turn off your old antivirus because it could have been been crippled by your possible virus infection.

4) Install F-Secure.

5) Run a complete scan of your computer. Follow any instructions F-Secure might give you.

6) Reboot.

If this works, you can either keep F-Secure or uninstall it and reinstall your old antivirus from either a download of the latest version from their website (if that's how they sell it) or from the disk it was on when you bought it. Be sure to get all the latest updates right away. Usually antivirus companies are pretty good about updating their programs whenever some new virus figures out how to evade or cripple their product.