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I found an amazing discovery here lately...

I scanned my pc for viruses, and I had one. But I had to figure out where the folder was that it said it was in. ME uses a System Restore feature, that archives everything installed on your pc, and makes a record of it in a folder, wether you still have it installed or not.

If you're like me, you may be noticing that after awhile, that you are slowly losing hard drive space, slowly but surely. I noticed this over the past few months, and I haven't installed anything that would take up that much space, and just never knew why or what was going on. Say for instance, when your pc was new, you have like 10 gigs of free space left. Then after a few months or years, now you have like 5 or 7 gigs free now, and you never did anything huge to account for that much of a loss. That's what's been happening to me, I never knew what was going on until I got this virus.

ME has a System Restore that saves all your stuff in a Temp folder, just in case you need it. Well, that's where my virus was. But it's a hidden folder.

So click Start, go to Programs, Accessories, and find Windows Explorer. At the top of the window you will see Tools. Go in there and click on Folder Options. A box will pop up, and at the top, click the View tab. In that list you will see a line that says "Hidden Files and Folders" and click the dot next to the line "Show all hidden files...". Then below that, un-check the box that says "Hide protected operating system files" and click Apply and OK at the bottom.

Then go to Start, Settings, Control Panel. Double click the System icon. A System Properties box will pop up, at the top click the Performance tab. Then at the bottom under Advanced Settings, click the button that says File System. Another box will pop open that will be File System Properties, and click the Troubleshooting tab at the top. At the bottom of all those boxes you'll see the last one that will say, Disable System Restore and check that box. Click Apply and OK, and then OK on the System Properties box.

Now you have stopped Restore from archiving all your activity. Go back into Windows Explorer like I explained above, and in your C drive, you'll see a folder named "_RESTORE", click that, then double click the TEMP folder in it. Now you can delete everything in that folder, or if your pc will let you, delete the whole _RESTORE folder completely.

My folder was holding over 4 gigs of my HD hostage. Now that it is gone, I defragged my pc, got rid of all the viruses, spyware, and junk, and now this thing runs like a Ferrari. It's as fast as it was when it was new, and I've never been happier.

Now just go back and undo all those folder options and hide everything again, and keep that Disable System Restore box checked, and go on with your life. Just wanted to let the ME users know about a secret that I had found. So, not ALL viruses are bad, if it wasn't for mine, I wouldn't have ever found this out. All of what I typed here, has been verified by many Computer Tech guys, so it's safe to do.

Enjoy!

XP has the same feature/problelm, only it has a restore tab on system properties.

Now, if only you could tell me why stand by doesn't work.

I never use Stand By myself, I always shut mine down, can't help ya on that one bro.

But, I Googled to find the solution for my problem, kinda funny how a search engine can be so useful, I use that darn thing fer pert near evrathang.

I disabled system restore about 2 years ago. I now use go back instead.

I never had a virus in my restore folder myself (norton AV running 100% of the time here), and I have had my butt saved more than once using the system restore feature, so I'll keep my restore tool active on my XP machine....Glad it worked for you though.

I use Yahoo email, and they pre-scan every letter and attachment using Norton AV 2005 before sending it to me, so maybe that's why I have been lucky so far. Anything sent with a virus in it automatically goes into my BULK email folder, and there have been many.

I also scan every zip I download before opening it. Keeping my fingers crossed, but so far, so good.


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Let me make another suggestion. While Adaware and Spybot work well, they miss a lot of stuff.

After reviewing a well-done comparison site of anti-spyware programs, I began using Pest Patrol. It has found lots of stuff that the previous 2 programs I mentioined passed over. There's a registration fee of $40 to activate the FIX portion of the program, but I found it worth the investment. I use all 3 now, and my machine runs great!

You can get the demo home version of Pest patrol at the link below.......The demo won't remove anything, but it will scan your PC and tell you if there's any stuff Adaware or Spybot missed. By doing so, you can tell if it's worthwhile for you to purchase it or not

http://www.pestpatrol.com


The site that compares all the anti-spyware programs can be found at the site below. Lots to read, but well worth reading:

http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-guide.htm

Yeah me too, I run Norton Systemworks, which has maint. engines of all kinds, antivirus, etc. Mine has full time scanner running at all times too.

That's why I thought I'd post, cuz Norton's didn't detect it, and there were 3 viruses in my pc. I also visit www.trendmicro.com every couple weeks too. They are a global, big business account, antivirus company that handle huge clients.

They have this thing there at the site called Trend Micro "House Call" and after a small download, they have software that will scan your pc for free. So every couple weeks I head over there just to double-check. They are the ones that found 3 viruses. I dunno if they were anything to worry about, but if they say I have a virus, or if Norton says so, I take it to heart. Wether or not it was a really big deal, or if they were harmful at all, I still believe it.

I'm a lil over protective, about that sort of thing. I had a virus in the early 90's destroy my first pc, and now that I have my Dell hot rod, I'm not taking any chances.

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Just pick the country you're from, and it'll dl a small engine into your "Downloaded Program Files" plug in, and then just check the boxes for the drives you wanna scan, and sit back and let it do it's thing. It will also clean them out automatically if possible, but most of the time you have to get rid of it yourself. If that's the case, there will be some links there that will tell you exactly how to delete the infected files. You can never be too sure, so it's just a lil added insurance, and it's free to do.

Well I ran a system restore last night in my last hope to fix my computer problems and now windows won't even load so now I'm in some deep do-do to say the least. I wonder if I had a virus in there and Avast didn't recognize it.