Hi, how do I know whether its safe or not to delete a given infected file that cannot be repaired? I mean, the infected file could be an important system file and if I delete it I screw stuff up, right? The results of my scan showed up 5-10 infected files which I "moved to chest" (i.e. quarantined). All but 2 of them are in the folder System Volume Information\_restore{a bunch of numbers and letters and dashes here}\RP<a 3-digit number here>. Any file whose path has a "temp" or "TEMP" anywhere in it can be deleted w/o thinking twice right? One of the other 2 infected files has "Temp" like in the middle of its full path. And what about the folder "Common Files"? The last infected one was in Program Files\Common Files.
To remove the system restore ones, right click my computer>system restore and disable it. If a virus has infected that then its pretty useless anyway. Files in the temp directory should be safe to delete, but since you've already go a virus then might as well give deleting a temp file a go. Common files not sure, depends whether the virus has infected a program or the program is the virus itself. If its the latter then delete it. Try googling the filename.exe of the virus and see what it turns up.
You can delete any infected files in the 'common files' folder. If you cannot repair the file, then it was probably a virus in the first place, rather then an important system file! The common files folder holds shared files for various applications. For example, Micrsoft Office puts files in there so Word and Excel can import each others documents. Macromedia Flash and Freehand put files in there for the same purpose. At worst, deleting files in that folder will stop some applications from working correctly, BUT IT WILL NOT be fatal to your OS What Antivirus software are you using? Avast antivirus make backups of all your files on a regular basis, so if the worst happens you can repair the file
Alright thanks, I'll try what u guys suggest. Yep I'm using Avast (tried your advice from the XP security guide thread). However, when I run it, it says that virus recovery database isn't done. But yeah I see what u're saying about the common files thing so that's no biggie. Ah, so thats the folder where the restore point data is kept. Lol can't believe I didn't think of that. Anyway, just disabling it is not going to delete all the saved restore point files is it? I'd like to keep system restore enabled but clear out all the currently saved restore points since they're infected.
Avast needs time to complete it's full system scan, and make backups of your files. By default, it only performs a backup scan when your screensaver is running. This means it can take a long time to complete. You can change this setting if you right click it's icon in the system tray. There is an option that says 'generate VBS when computer is idle'. You may want to merge the two Avast icons in the taskbar, you can do this by right clicking one of them, and selecting 'merge with main avast icon'.
