paranoid questions

well, my computer is pretty well infected with something that hijack this, spybot, avg can't find. it got infected about a week ago, and also infects system restore. anyhow, i am going to flatline my computer as soon as i get through processing a bunch of data- eta, mid next week. all the data is .jpgs and i am transfering them through usb to another computer.

questions- 1)can the other computer be infected this way?

2) i am worried, because after i emptied a folder of pix, the 'empty' folder properties says 1 file 0 folders and 508k of content, but i can't see anything. and i have show hidden turned on. is this a glitch in xp explorer, or is something nasty hiding there? edit- ok, 6 out of 7 folders, created when dowloading loading pix off an olympus camera, seem to have an invisible file ranging from 467 to 508k

thanks- efi

 

the more likely situation is that the file in system restore is infecting your PC.

Turn off system restore and it will dump all the files (all restore points will be lost) and the virus will be erased with it. Then try your AV and spyware scan again in safe mode.

 

thanks for the tip! unfortunately, didn't work. my start page, about blank has ads for all sorts of things and when i bring upie, a popup comes up telling me that my computer is infected and that i should dowload their software. these creeps should be thrashed! and when i go to a bunch of pages, such as microsoft dowloads, it goes back to that page and popup.

i went to the sticky on what to do first, and i can't do any of the dowlaods there, just the same not blank page and the popup.

system restore is not on, i emptied all temp files while in safe mode and also disconnected from the net. ran hijack this and spybot sd from safe mode (which did fix a few things anyhow, but not the main thing). while i find this interesting and annoying, the big question is

do you think i can infect the other computer by transfering jpeg folders?

 

Only if they are infected with a virus. Spyware does't "infect" objects such as those.
Did you read our Spyware tutorial?