Lots of strangely named zip files

[wedge22]

Using win xp on an older pc my father in law has lots of strange zip files on his computer all with complete gibberish for names like, zxcdfsm.
We need to know what they are and how to get rid of them please, i am guessing its a virus. These files are in every folder on his pc! Please help us out.

[Stoo]

maybe that's his hidden porn stash?

ahem.. tried an up-to-date virus scanner? zip files are no problem for them..

[Shogun]

Do a search for *.zip and highlighting all the gibberish ones and then pressing the delete key? And then praying to god they dont reappear?

[Dave_07]

If they are zip files aren't they only a danger if you run one ?

[Shogun]

If they are zip files aren't they only a danger if you run one ?

True but they would certainly take up space in large numbers

[Dave_07]

Indeed

[wedge22]

I tried deleting them but it would take me an age, there is also something very wrong with his virus scanner which is AVG, as it will not iniatlise.

[iMc]

re-install AVG and try again.

If you cant get it to work theres plenty of free AV progs here:

http://www.download.com/Antivirus/31...0.html?tag=dir

[MD]

if AVG will not initialise then its probably got a virus that specifically stops them working, I know norton, mcafee and AVg have been named applications in recent viruses that are not allowed to run when the machine is infected.

pull the net connection out and then reboot and retry,

m@

[Jiff Lemon]

boot into safe mode and run a virus scan. about 90% of virus place an entry in the startup folder, so even if you delete it, it reappears. Safe mode skips all entries in the startup folder.

[wedge22]

He does not know his administrater password which is no helpful. The machine had over 8000 copies of mydoom on it. I used avg to get rid of all of them except a few in the startup which i cannot do due to not knowing the admin password.

[Lee H]

With an infestation as big as that I would recommending a format and reinstall as there will be too many to simply clean up and get windows running properly.

Once re-installed, install the lastest updates to the AV and pray it never happens again

[wedge22]

Well a re install is out of the question for now as the machine is just soo slow anyway it took me bloody ages last time, plus they live over 100 mile round trip away.