HELP! Virus Problem!

[ramza]

I will be really grateful if someone could help me with this. I caught a virus last month on my pc ("Trojan Horse") and have put it on quarantine since then. It infected my notepad.exe file and since then I can't use my notepad files (which I have many). I have updated every month my Norton Antivirus program but it can't fix my file.

I downloaded a Trojan Horse Remover program from the web but to deal with my infection, it requires to have closed my anti-virus program. I did whatever it asked me to do but the remover program couldn't have access to the infected file. I think this is because I have put the file in quarantine. Someone suggested me to release the file (meaning to remove it from quarantine) and to fix it with my remover program.

 

The only thing is that I am afraid of infecting my whole pc if I release the contaminated file. Do you have any idea about what I should do, please?

 

Thanks in advance!

Cheers.

[EnderAndrew]

Norton really isn't the best antivirus on the planet, but I digress.

 

HouseCall Antivirus

 

That website has a free, online virus scan. You don't need to download or install any software, and it's pretty good. If that doesn't fix it, Dr. Solomon's has a pretty good Trojan remover.

 

And notepad is a horrid program. There are many better text editors out there like UltraEdit.

[Whitemithrandir]

Two syllables.

 

The number of legs a mountain lion has and what's usually in front of the bathroom sink.

[taks]

uh, we're all forgetting the obvious... windows comes stock with wordpad, another editor a bit better than notepad anyway. right click on your text files (that's what notepad creates) and select the "open with..." option. works like a charm.

taks

[ramza]

uh, we're all forgetting the obvious... windows comes stock with wordpad, another editor a bit better than notepad anyway. right click on your text files (that's what notepad creates) and select the "open with..." option. works like a charm.

taks

Yoohoo! You really saved me! But I would still like to get rid of that virus and I am afraid of letting it loose in my pc in order to fix it with my "Trojan Horse Remover". Do you know if it is safe to remove it from quarantine?

[Phoenix19-15-5]

uh, we're all forgetting the obvious... windows comes stock with wordpad, another editor a bit better than notepad anyway.

[taks]

well, this is the way off topic section...

 

even a virus that changes name and such needs a way to get started, i.e. something needs to touch it to start it. simply sitting on your hard drive is not enough to kick it off (it is not self aware unless it is already running). i can't think of any reason for your system to need to use notepad.exe, so removing it from quarrantine probably won't hurt as long as the references to the bad registry entries are removed (whatever the virus used to get started...) and any other infected portions of your computer have been cleaned.

 

keep in mind, this is not my specialty in life so you may want a second opinion on this. however, it is sensible to assume that a trojan horse remover would take into account that the program needs to be in the open in order to be cleaned, therefore it is probably not a bad thing to free it.

 

taks