Document folder filling up with pics virus?

gal1998 · Sep 14, 2009

My brother-in-law just called me for some advice. I told him I think he needs to run some anti-virus scans, but wanted to run it by you all, too.
He is selling a boat and the guy wanted pictures, so my brother-in-law sent him an email with pictures. Now, the pictures keep replicating themselves over and over again in his document folder. He said he can't keep up with deleting them, they just keep showing up.
I know I have heard of this happening, but I did a search and couldn't find it. Any ideas what it is?
Thanks
Gal

plodr · Sep 14, 2009

Make sure he is disconnected from the internet. Then have him do this

Go to My Pictures and open the folder with all the duplicates in.
Click View and select Details.
Holding down the Shift key, left click on the top photo that you want to delete. Then with the Shift key pressed click on the bottom photo that you are going to delete. With them all highlighted right click and select Delete.
Click to expand...

Repeat until all the photos are gone.

gal1998 · Sep 14, 2009

Thanks plodr.
Will that get rid of whatever is happening or will it do it again?

plodr · Sep 15, 2009

From reading, it isn't a virus. Lots of people have this happen simply because they move the mouse slightly when trying to do something then they end up with lots of duplicate pictures.

If this gets rid of the pictures and he has no more problems, we can assume it is user error and not a virus. If it doesn't solve the problem, then I'd say first do a scan with malwarebytes then head to the malware section of the board.
Have him register and start reading here
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407
when he has the tools downloaded and run through them, he can start a thread with his logs attached here
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=35

gal1998 · Sep 16, 2009

Thank you for the help. I will call him today and let him know. I think all he did was shut down the computer for now.

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Document folder filling up with pics virus?

gal1998 solo-cob

plodr MajorGeek Super Extraordinaire Moderator Staff Member

gal1998 solo-cob

plodr MajorGeek Super Extraordinaire Moderator Staff Member

gal1998 solo-cob