Documents folder on desktop.

I have a documents folder appearing on my desktop almost every time I turn my machine one. It's empty, and I delete it when I see it, but what is going on there? It's just like some ghost folder that won't leave me alone.

 

run a virus scan, cause that is pretty wierd...spybot to the rescue

 

in W7 (maybe vista) right click the desktop->Personalize->Change Desktop Icons and uncheck the box for your documents. may solve your problem, not sure.

 

There is no such box. And I can't run full system scans. I have a corrupt file somewhere that if I try to access in any way, my computer freezes.

I also don't think it is a virus. Chances are, I clicked the mouse by accident at the wrong time and created some weird problem. On another computer with Vista 32 bit, I somehow got it so that there were 2 of each icon on the desktop. I couldn't delete both because after I deleted one, it would tell me that the other doesn't exist, and I couldn't delete one, because then then the remaining one wouldn't work because it technically didn't exist. Some kind of quantum error or something.

 

what?!?! Tried safe mode?

 

No virus scan even comes close to finishing in safe mode. AVG and Mcafee both run for hours and barely get anywhere. One thing I could do is maybe find the file myself in safe mode and delete it. I'd have to run a virus scan in normal mode again though, as I forgot the file's name. Even if I go anywhere near it in normal mode with windows explorer, I still get a crash. So maybe I'll do that now, I'm not really busy.

 

you could also do it through the command promt. i dont see how windows would crash if you did it that way

 

If its that much trouble, then why not just back up and reformat. If a virus scan takes hours and a reformat and reinstall takes about the same, then getting a nice clean fresh system seems like the better deal

 

but then he'd still have to find the corrupt file, or he'd just replace it after the reformat without knowing

 

do you have a "clean" computer you can work with (by clean I mean known not to have a virus). If so, make a BitDefender Rescue Disk and boot your notebook from that.
http://www.techmixer.com/bitdefender-rescue-cd-with-auto-update-virus-definition-features/

 

It would be a lot more trouble to backup and reformat. I don't even have the OS disk anymore. The corrupt file is a windows system file, so I'm guessing something went wrong with the original install. I do have a clean computer though, so I could make the disc. First I'll see what the problem file was though. It takes about 40-50 minutes to get to it usually. Normally I wouldn't think of deleting a windows system file, but I think this one is AMD related or something, and I don't think my computer ever accesses it except during virus scans.

 

True, but with everything on an external drive, you do a complete scan on your external drive and find whats wrong. Or you reformat and then get avira and scan each file you put back on your system before you dump it on the laptop again

 

Hey, you're right, I could just scan an external drive. Would be it guaranteed not to crash it though?

 

Your computer wouldnt crash scanning an external (more than likely) though it will take a while.

If its a system file though i would first run a windows "repair" on your computer if you can get your hands on a OS disk. It doesn't have to be your disk just to run the repair (as you aren't installing windows just repairing your installation of it)

 

Well, if I can get an OS disk, I will.

 

Since BitDefender's a boot disk cant he just use it on his broken computer? i do believe the infected one can still download and burn cds. bit defender can scan a computers entire hdd even if the computer you have bitdefender on is infected. no need for an external

 

Bit defender might work, but if the file is actually a needed sys file, i'm not sure if it will be able to repair it or use it to repair the system.

Its worth a try i suppose, but usually the windows repair will be a better option (at least IMO, so take that with a grain of salt)

 

I found the file. It took longer than usual, I guess quite a bit of stuff has been moved around and added since I last did this. It's a file called extmgr.dll. The entire path is
C\\:Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-ie-extensionmanager-31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_none_aa442f09c48027.

It's the only thing in there, and seems to be for amd machines. I can get to it in safe mode. Could I just move it off my computer and see if the problem goes away?

Also, when I went to boot up in safe mode, one of the options was repair windows, or something like that. Can it repair system files w/o an OS disc?

 

i think it may be able to. win7 does if you screw up some files during installation somehow. no disc needed

why do you have an amd file? using some ati tools? anyways, i was going to say not to use bit defender if the file was a necessary system file as bit defender will just delete it with no regard to your system stability. remember a case i had way back when where i went from virus infected OS to no OS at all

you do a goolge search for the file? see what its there for?

EDIT: and how is this related to that documents folder on your desktop?

 

The what now? lol, no, remember? Someone (you?) suggested I run a virus scan. I said I couldn't, due to the file. Someone said safe mode, I said scan goes at snail pace in safe mode. Other suggestions came up, I ran scan in the meantime. As to why it's there, I don't really know. Why would it be related to ATI tools? Maybe it's on all installations.

I'll try the repair thing though. Do I need to back anything up, or does it just screw with system files?

Edit: Is bit defender actually an anti virus program? To me it looks like one that just acts without an OS (which is really cool). If that is the case, then it will probably complete the scan, but it may or may not delete this specific system file. The file may not be infected at all after all.

 

BitDefender is antivirus and runs in Linux, not windows. Thats how it can access your system files, because Windows isnt using them. Be careful with the scan, make sure you don't delete any files in system32 etc.

And you are correct the file may not be infected at all. It may simply be corrupt.

You don't need to back up any files with BitDefender. Neither do you if you are using the Windows system repair.

I was wondering however, how this ATI file is related to your Documents folder. I dont think they are. Could be a coincidence that you have this file you can't delete and this documents folder keeps coming back. But I don't have said file. Of course it may not be there in windows7, but you dont have an AMD procesor do you? And it could be related to ATI because AMD owns them. I thought maybe you were using some of their tools to overclock (dunno why) and thats why the amd folders were there.

 

I guess I shoulda explained a little better.

You dont have to run disks like BitDefender from an uninfected computer, but you need to create/burn the disk from a clean computer. It may sound stupid, but I cant count the times I've watched people make boot disks or anti-virus disks from an infected computer, then not understand when they cant get rid of the virus or problems.

 

I see what you were getting at now. I just thought the chances were slim that if he had a virus, it would infect an iso file as he burned it to a CD. But on second thought I see how a virus could try to attach itself to any external media (fail in the process) and screw the whole burning process up

 

AMD owns ATI? I didn't know that, I thought they just had some sort of partnership. So here's what I'm going to do. I'll run windows repair. I have no idea how that's going to work, but whatever. I'll run another scan afterwards. If it still crashes, I'll run Bit Defender. Then I'll probably just get rid of the file. If you don't have it, it's probably not necessary. It's the only file in the folder and the folder is the only one named anything like that. And it isn't related to the Desktop folder, absolutely not. But the desktop folder might be related to a virus, so you see why I need to get rid of this other problem.

 

Now that I think about it, you can probably access the file from within BitDefender. It runs in Linux so you have a desktop to work from. I think the C drive appears as an external disk in BitDefender, so you should be able to open it and explore it without crashing once you've found the file. Not saying itll let you delete it (tho you may be able to), esp if youve got encryption going on, but at least you can look at it

 

Ok, so here's what I've done. The first thing was I made the BitDefender CD. I booted from it, but it gave me some error message that it can't find the KNOPPIX filesystem. I then booted up in safe mode, and went to the file location. I managed to copy it to a usb, but froze afterward. I then tried to delete it, but was denied permission. Then I tried the same through the command prompt, but was still denied. So I'm pretty sure I can't delete the file while running windows, but I can't get BitDefender to load either.

 

Go get an ubuntu live cd from their site. Thatll definitely boot and it should allow you to delete the virus

EDIT: not virus, I mean file. Ubuntu is a stand alone Linux OS, so you may be able to delete the file from within there. However it doesnt have any antivirus for windows built in. I dunno why BitDefender didn't work

 

I'll try one more thing with BitDefender. I think I might know why it didn't boot. I do want to get it running though. I hate normal antivirus programs. They're so freaking intrusive.

 

actually my school offers Symantec Endpoint Protection for free to students. Its awesome. I used AVG for a while thinking that SEP would slow down my computer, however i found that AVG would use like 30% of my cpu at random times. Went back to SEP and have had ZERO problems since. Plus it runs lighter than about any other program I have. Dunno what they did but I never see it using more than 5% of the cpu, and it runs scans at night which is awesome. So if you can get Symantec Endpoint Protection somehow, then by all means do so.

 

Ubuntu won't run off the CD. Getting some I/O error or something. I think I might have burned the disc too fast, but 8x is the slowest I can do on the 7811. I'll try burning it elsewhere tomorrow, but right now I'm out of CDs.

I fixed the documents thing though. It was some Adobe Acrobat BS. So woohoo...

 

wow. well Ubuntu should run, I used it soley on my 7805u for a few months and almost all the drivers came preinstalled, and I had not a single error ever.

Have you managed to research this AMD file yet?

 

I've tried in the past. I have no idea what it is. It may be related to ATI tools. I used to have that program installed a long time ago. Certainly nobody has had a problem with it before.

I know Ubuntu should run. I'll try again tomorrow or Wednesday. There was probably just a problem when burning the disc.

 

How did you come to the conclusion that the winsxs file is what was putting the documents folder on the desktop?

If it's on startup did you already look through: msconfig, startup folder, hijackthis?

 

I'm digging this thread back up. I fixed my documents folder problem. I decided to ignore it before, but I couldn't when it started putting stuff that had to go into the documents folder in the one on my desktop, not the real one. I tried making a shortcut on the desktop to my documents folder, but that didn't work. The solution was to put the new documents folder into the old documents folder. I can't get rid of it, but at least it's not storing over a gig of crap on my desktop anymore.

 

Your old documents folder should no longer be considered system folder. If it is on your desktop then delete the old folder and then move the desktop folder there to replace it.............

 

I was going to do that, but since I have no idea why it made the new folder in the first place, I decided to just leave things as they are for now. Everything seems to be working fine, so I'll delete the old one if I run into problems.