Malware ?

[bustercat64]

I have had malware to pop up on my computer over the last couple days and my computer tech is tied up and cant come by. I am up for suggestions on what to do. The bummer to this whole thing we are getting new computers through out my office at the end of this month. I'm running XP and sense Microsoft stop supporting it last week that is when all this stuff started.

[JDgator]

Your computer is likely infected. It will be necessary to install a new version of windows on the computer. I don't want you to lose any of your work.

Do you have a USB drive? If not, please get one. It doesn't need to be very expensive or large. A few gigabytes will suffice.

Assuming you have one, use it to make a backup copy of all your documents. Start by copying over the My Documents folder. If you save files to the desktop, copy those items over as well.

Do you use Microsoft Outlook for email? If so, I need you to copy the .PST file to your USB drive as well. The .PSt file contains all your email, saved folders, and calendar items. We don't want you to lose it. Here are directions on how to locate the file: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291636

We don't want you to lose your bookmarks in your browser. These can be exported and saved to your external drive. I don't know which browser you are using, but this task is fairly straightforward. For instance, here are directions on exporting Chrome bookmarks: http://www.wikihow.com/Export-Bookmarks-from-Chrome.

Finally, make a list of all the applications you use on your computer. You don't need to list all the Microsoft office products, these are assumed. You tech support person will use this list to re-image your computer. He or she will also know what to do with the outlook file and the exported bookmarks.

[bustercat64]

Thanks that basically what I have done