Quake3World

All of a sudden, random programs are losing their icons or just disappearing from the HD, and trying to run them leads to a fatal error (x has encountered a problem and needs to close). It started a week or so ago, but everything was okay after I restarted explorer and I could still run the programs, now it seems to be getting worse. Any ideas hom0s?

Yeah I've got a few.

What are you using in terms of active anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall programs? Have you run any tests?

Download the latest version of AVG Free, Ad-aware, and Windows Defender and run some tests.

Also, is it just your desktop shortcuts malfunctioning? Are you able to run the programs from their root directories?

Seconded. Sounds like a virus to me. Do some scans and check back.

His H/D could be taking a shit on him as well.

If the Anti-virus or other scans come up with nothing, run a disk utility. Your drive could be developing bad sectors.

yeah about once a day I think I hear my HD cough, which is a pain since I replaced my old HD with this one about 3 months ago or less. That was my first worry, any recommendations for disk utilities?

Captain Mazda wrote:Yeah I've got a few.

What are you using in terms of active anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall programs? Have you run any tests?

Download the latest version of AVG Free, Ad-aware, and Windows Defender and run some tests.

Also, is it just your desktop shortcuts malfunctioning? Are you able to run the programs from their root directories?

It isn't just the desktop shortcuts, the actual apps lost their icons and wont start. If it is a virus, I can't imagine where I got it from.

edit: And Word, which wouldn't start last time, now starts after I restarted- but some other programs aren't. Could be a virus, I'm getting AVG now. If it is a virus, I can't imagine where I got it from.

Without proper protection, viruses can sneak in as soon as you connect to the internet. Glad to hear you're grabbing AVG.

From a personal experience, Windows Defender + AVG + Windows Firewall + regularly updated SP2 + good internet usage = no malware.

Well I'm not using a genuine windows install because my HD died while I was away from home and just borrowed a friend's burned CD for minimum downtime, which is proving to be a huge fucking pain in the ass. And indeed it appears I do have a virus, "Delf.ADT" and I think I know how I got it. Stupid fucking friends, always friends.

Apparently manually removing Delf.ADT is a pain in the ass because you don't know how many files it has infected. Has AVG prompted you to delete/quarantine any of the infected files?

it's still scanning, the count is at 342 infected so far. If I the files can't be repaired I'm going to be fucking pissed, might as well reinstall absolutely everything.

Holy shit, it really did a number on you. Is it possible for you to perform a system restore back to when everything was working? Otherwise I'd go for a full reformat. Let's see what AVG can do.