neo_maya Posted October 3, 2003 Posted October 3, 2003 Hi, A few days ago, I brought a floppy and copied all the files from it. Now, what I have is a harddrive full of two files - desktop.ini and folder.htt. I searched for the files and windows tells me that the total file number exceeds the capacity allowed. So, I ran a full system scan, and norton av found only three files and said that it was unable to repair the files and later it failed to quarantine those files. However, later I searched for those files again and windows showed 193 desktop.ini files. Now, my question is can I safely delete these files and does this redlof.a virus effects other files? I mean is there any chance that other files on my harddrive may be corrupted? There is this other thing - when I again ran a full system scan, it found nothing. I downloaded a virus removal tool from panda soft and the tool didn't find any virus or at least it didn't show any indication of finding one. I updated the virus definition list and still no use. Please help, any suggestion would be great. One last question - does a firewall protect pc from viruses? Neo
atinymonkey Posted October 3, 2003 Posted October 3, 2003 What was on the floppy? What reason did Norton give for attempting to quarantine the files? Why do you think a virus was installed, Redlof.A or any other? Firewalls offer complete protection from virus infiltration. If you uninstall norton and download as many files as you can find, the firewall will gain more experience of viruses and consiquently become more effective at prevention -Only kidding. Firewall don't stop viruses, they stop people getting into your machine by setting fire to their cables if they try.
neo_maya Posted October 3, 2003 Author Posted October 3, 2003 atinymonkey said in post #2 :What was on the floppy? What reason did Norton give for attempting to quarantine the files? Why do you think a virus was installed, Redlof.A or any other? Firewalls offer complete protection from virus infiltration. If you uninstall norton and download as many files as you can find, the firewall will gain more experience of viruses and consiquently become more effective at prevention -Only kidding. Firewall don't stop viruses, they stop people getting into your machine by setting fire to their cables if they try. I don't actually understand what u mean. It was just a normal powerpoint file. I told u that norton couldn't repair the files or do what it was supposed to do and so it offered to quarantine the files. And why do I think that a virus was installed - because as far as I know there shouldn't be all those files named - desktop.ini and folder.htt (pardon me if i am wrong). Besides someone once told me that redlof.a virus is a polymorphic virus that generates all those files. Besides, I told u that after I ran norton (after I had seen those files), it found 3 files infected and as far as I can remember it suggested the name - html.redlof.a or something like that. And as far as the last question about firewalls goes - I thought that firewalls were supposed to restrict inbound and outgoing traffic. So, if a virus was indeed spreading (say) through a site, then shouldn't the firewall stop it? - that was my point. I am new at these kind of stuff - so by default I am allowed to say something silly - don't u think ? - lol.
atinymonkey Posted October 4, 2003 Posted October 4, 2003 You should have 3 desktop.ini files, one in c:\Program files one in c:\WINNT and on in c:\WINNIT\system32. The folder.htt is in the same locations plus c:\WINNT\Web. That's true for 98 98se and win2000, but I don't know what OS you are on. It's quite hard to pinpoint problems like yours without actually looking at your PC, hence the flippent answer. For instance, if you have just searched for .ini files than that would be why the windows error occured. As for the firewall, it restricts ingoing and outgoing traffic but that's it. It can't help you if you download stuff or load it on a disk.
Sayonara Posted October 4, 2003 Posted October 4, 2003 It will stop the majority of Trojans and worms from scanning the ports on your PC, or - if there are any on your PC - it will stop them scanning for new victims. Unless they use an unsecured port like Port 80 of course. Like atm said, it won't do a thing to viruses in emails, on discs etc.
neo_maya Posted October 4, 2003 Author Posted October 4, 2003 atinymonkey said in post #4 :You should have 3 desktop.ini files, one in c:\Program files one in c:\WINNT and on in c:\WINNIT\system32. The folder.htt is in the same locations plus c:\WINNT\Web. That's true for 98 98se and win2000, but I don't know what OS you are on. It's quite hard to pinpoint problems like yours without actually looking at your PC, hence the flippent answer. For instance, if you have just searched for .ini files than that would be why the windows error occured. As for the firewall, it restricts ingoing and outgoing traffic but that's it. It can't help you if you download stuff or load it on a disk. Hi, Thanks. But what I did was - I specifically searched for desktop.ini file not "*.ini" files. Any suggestion on how to remove the virus from my computer or is it already gone?? I am asking this because as I have told u - though norton did find the virus before, now it can't (although the first time it said that it was unable to repair the files). And please don't laugh at me if I'm wrong - I thought that if u customize any folder, a desktop.ini file is automatically genereted. Thanks again. But Still, I don't quite understand what I should do. Helppppppppppp.
neo_maya Posted October 4, 2003 Author Posted October 4, 2003 Sayonara³ said in post #5 :It will stop the majority of Trojans and worms from scanning the ports on your PC, or - if there are any on your PC - it will stop them scanning for new victims. Unless they use an unsecured port like Port 80 of course. Like atm said, it won't do a thing to viruses in emails, on discs etc. Hi, I have this really tiny tiny silly question - what is port 80? I mean what are these ports that u guys are always talking about? One last question - didn't u have a dancing banana? I really liked it. Thanks.
Sayonara Posted October 4, 2003 Posted October 4, 2003 Your communications to other network resources, the internet etc has what are called "ports" - the easiest way to think of them is as channels. Port 80 is the port that http requests arrive at, so it's not likely to be blocked by a firewall. Thinking about it though it's actually the server that you connect to at port 80... I'll shut up now. The banana is called Geoff and he's gone on his holidays to see family in the Bahamas. They're Bahamas Bananas.
neo_maya Posted October 5, 2003 Author Posted October 5, 2003 Sayonara³ said in post #8 :Your communications to other network resources, the internet etc has what are called "ports" - the easiest way to think of them is as channels. Port 80 is the port that http requests arrive at, so it's not likely to be blocked by a firewall. Thinking about it though it's actually the server that you connect to at port 80... I'll shut up now. The banana is called Geoff and he's gone on his holidays to see family in the Bahamas. They're Bahamas Bananas. Thanks. So I suppose what a firewall actually does is that it blocks or monitors the ports. So, can u block these ports without installing a firewall? About the virus - I downloaded Solo av - and scanned the hd - but it didn't find any virus either. So, can I now safely delete all the folder.htt and desktop.ini files (except the ones that atinymonkey mentioned) ? These files are created in each and every folder. Someone plz give a solution.
blike Posted October 5, 2003 Posted October 5, 2003 sounds like its safe to delete them. if push comes to shove, can't you reformat your computer?
neo_maya Posted October 5, 2003 Author Posted October 5, 2003 blike said in post #10 :sounds like its safe to delete them. if push comes to shove, can't you reformat your computer? Thanks. But the thing is - see - I have some things that I need on other drives - so when I tried to back them up on a cd, the files appeared on the cd too - so I couldn't burn the cd. Now, if I format the harddrive.............. if I burn the cd, I am afraid as soon as I copy the files from the cd back to the hd, the virus will infect the OS again. Those files are on every drive. So, if a problem occurs, then I would have to reformat the entire hd - otherwise it may just not be effective to format the c drive only. But I am going to delete the files anyway to see how it goes. Thanks again.
YT2095 Posted October 5, 2003 Posted October 5, 2003 use this for a free check on your ports. http://www.auditmypc.com/ it`ll do the basic ones for you, when you get more understanding, you can be sellective and target specific ones
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