Windows XP Help

[mnflyfish]

Ok, I know it was a bonehead move but I let my wife use my computer over the weekend. Now when I log in, all my files are coming up .ink and I get a message that Windows needs to know how each program was written, sends me to a website and it comes back that there is no information. I have tried to go to XP restore but I get the same error message. I have two different virus packages running but this sure looks like a virus. The only thing I have access to is Explorer but when I go into my email, it doesn't let me open attachments, a bad thing for business.

So, any ideas before I head off to BEst Buy and hand over my laptop to the Geek Squad for an undertermined amount of time?

Thanks for the help!
Jay

[Sphinx]

All your files are coming up .ink? Which files? Like what used to be Word files? How about executables? Photos?

.ink files are created with one of those pens that you can write on your screen with. You don't have the software to open those files, that's why the machine gets confused.

Don't assume it's a virus just yet.

[Tuckerman]

Do you have a Tablet PC? Try to change the file extension back so if it was a word document change the name from name.ink to name.doc.

[RShea]

I also want to comment on the fact that you have 2 different virus software software running. Most packages do not play well with each other and you have issues like severe computer slow down as the 2 fight for control. I'd pick one and get rid of the other package by uninstalling it. If you want a 2nd check to see if the AV software is working (you can read reviews on AV-Comparatives.org web site to see which test out as the most thorough), from time to time do an on-line web based scan with Trend, Kaspersky, etc. Some of the web based packages will not remove anything detected but will report the infected machine.

[mnflyfish]

Well,

Thanks for the advice and response, but I was unable to see them because it crashed all together. I went to a local computer shop, not a Geek Squad location, but a local store front. Apparently what had happend was all my files were "disassociated" and relabled. I did have some weird spywear on my computer that was not caught by Spybot, or MS spywear, but the actual cause remains a mystery or I stopped listening to the guy after he said it was fixed. Either way, this guy fixed the problem, scrubbed the machine for viruses and spywear, cleaned things up and changed my startup menu to get things running faster. All for $112 so I feel like I got a pretty good bargin considering I had no idea what was going wrong and the Geek Squad wanted $250 just to look at it and then they couldn't get to it until later in the week.

Thanks again!
Jay

[RShea]

Good job on the local computer guru. Much more reasonable in pricing than the big box stores like the Geeks.

[NorCascader]

Wow...that sounds like a chick surfing porn!

Tell her the only safe place to surf porn is in the "padded room"...
and "stop opening up every pop-up weiner-window".

[schindlerpiste]

I brief segway: Someone sent me some very, well, HOT, SPICY, NSFW,HAPPENIN' e-mails that I would have loved to share with the respectable folks around here. Problem is that whenever, I right click and try to copy them, I don't get a toolbar that says "save picture as". All photos are part of a slideshow. Also, I can not upload the entire slideshow with imageshack. XP is my operating system. ANy suggestions?

[mnflyfish]

Wow...that sounds like a chick surfing porn!

Tell her the only safe place to surf porn is in the "padded room"...
and "stop opening up every pop-up weiner-window".

You know, now that you mention it we were away for the weekend without the kids, and things did get a little freaky after bar close so you may be on to something. Sorry no TR pictures.

Good Luck,
Jay