My computer has been infected by a virus through opening an attachment file from an e-mail from someone I know. I am about to re-format my hard disk, but hope you can give me some advice on how to remove this virus. I have been to Web site Housecall.antivirus.com to check the problem. However, the software on the Web site could not remove the virus, which it identified as W32/Navidad.e@M?mail to:W32/Navidad.e@M?
There are more than 300 infected files in my temporary Internet files directory that are non-removable. The Windows System Wintask.exe also is infected. When I opened the e-mail in my other computer, I received more than 800 e-mails, some with the virus.
SAMUEL TAM
Causeway Bay
With this week's global outbreak of the Anna Kournikova worm/virus, you could not have found a more topical problem. Luckily for the world's tennis fans, the Anna Kournikova e-mail was relatively harmless, but it served as yet another much-needed wake-up call. The first thing to do when you suffer a virus attack is turn off your e-mail program. This will not solve your problem, but at least it will prevent the virus from spreading to your friends' and colleagues' computers. While reformatting your hard disk may seem to be an instant solution, unless you regularly back up data, it is a depressing waste of perfectly good data.
The virus that you found, Navidad (the Spanish for Christmas), is an ugly monster that can render systems inoperable. There are several variants, but in all cases the virus checks your mail program for messages that contain attachments. This indicates the sender probably will not be surprised to receive an attachment from you. It then fires off copies of itself to all of those contacts.