Solution:
Although viruses now often try to hide, it still pays to be aware of the classic symptoms of infection. Not all of these necessarily indicate a virus. You could instead be the victim of a hard drive problem or a Windows glitch. Still, whenever you see these signs, you’d do well to take a closer look and check for viruses.
• The amount of free space on your hard drive drops dramatically and suddenly due to virus files copying themselves all over your system.
• Your computer runs noticeably more slowly, especially after opening a new file or starting a new program, and continues to run sluggishly even after you have closed that file or program and rebooted your computer.
• Your computer takes longer to load after you turn it on, even though you haven’t made any significant changes to your system.
• Windows refuses to start, but you haven’t made a single change to it or your system.
• Windows won’t start and an error message tells you that it’s because certain important files are missing.
• Software that always ran without trouble starts frequently freezing up, and the program continues to freeze even after you uninstall and reinstall it.
• The size of some program files suddenly and dramatically increase even though you haven’t modify them in any way.
• Windows Task Manager refuses to run.
• You get frequent “Out of Memory” error messages, even though you know you have sufficient memory for everything you’re doing.
• Your antivirus program is suddenly disabled or will not load.
• Unfamiliar icons appear on your Desktop, even though you haven’t
• Unfamiliar icons appear on your Desktop, even though you haven’t installed any new software
• Unfamiliar messages or dialog boxes pop up (other than legitimate error messages), especially if they’re unrelated to programs you’re running or if they ask for confidential information such as passwords.
• Your modem shows excessive activity even when you aren’t working online.
• Several serious hard drive errors appear when a disk scanning utility, such as Scandisk, runs.
• Your computer plays music or sound effects that are unrelated to programs you’re using.
• Your computer often freezes when you turn it on, coming to a halt before the Desktop loads fully.
• Windows spontaneously starts from time to time.
• Software begins to disappear from your computer even though you have not uninstalled it.
For additional information, please refer to the article in the "See Also:" section below. |