Question by : How do I remove a virus McAfee doesn’t detect?
I have McAfee. Since yesterday, four pop-ups appear at the same time: a window that looks like the standard “File Download” dialog in Firefox (but slightly different). It’s asking “Do you want to save or open this file?” Buttons: Open Save Cancel. It actually has my windows 7 aero theme with transparency in the title bar so it’s not a pre-rendered copy. I think Windows is genuinely asking to open or save the file because it actually tells me the address of the PNG. They’re located in C:/Users/[User_Name]/AppData/Local/Temp, and it refers to one of four PNG files with like 8 random characters as its name. It’s “Type” is “PhotoViewer.FileAssoc.png”. Even when I delete them from temp, 20 minutes later, four new 1kb PNGs are created and I am asked whether to save or open them. I’ve been using ALT-F4 to close the pop-ups so I don’t click anything inside. While the first time it happened, I was in Firefox, this is still occuring even with Firefox closed, even after restarting my computer and never having started Firefox. I also disconnected that computer from the internet. I looked at my task manager, but can’t make any sense of the dozens of processes running, except having 8 “rundll32.exe”s looks suspicious and I believe a 9th was created last time it popped up (the last time it popped up, it was still 9). I ran a full virus scan with McAfee but it detected nothing. I haven’t updated McAfee yet because I don’t want to plug into the internet: I’m worried about the virus!

Does anyone recognize this virus or know what to do about it? How risky is it to connect to the internet to update? Does anyone know if McAfee would detect this one once it’s updated? (i.e. is it a new virus out this week?)

Also, is it safe to move files off the computer with either a USB flash drive or an external hard drive? I’ve also been having a problem with windows explorer listing like four folders in the left pane and having the magnifying glass search anim run forever, and either the files never show up in the main pane, or the names appear but the icons are missing or generic. Typically it never shows up in “My Computer” but if you know the address of any other folder, the files will show up without icons. That problem is also occuring on a computer that has never been connected to the internet, but has received files from that computer via a USB flash drive (that wasn’t always properly ejected). It only started occuring on the second computer after the flash drive was plugged in. Are these separate or correlated issues?

THANKS!!!

Best answer:

Answer by Dustin M
Get something better than a toaster like McAfee

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