Every Icon Opens Microsoft Word

[Augustine531]

I am working on a friend's comp and every icon you click on opens microsoft Word with some kind of ACSII code in the document that opens. I downloaded stinger and even it opened word. I finally have it running, but what causes this and how can I help him get rid of it?

Thanks,
Augustine531

[Raptor]

Install a decent virus scanner, a firewall and a spyware scanner.

[Augustine531]

All three are in place. They may not be the best, but they are installed and updated. Norton Antivirus, the firewall that comes with SP2, and spybot, ad-aware and at least one other spyware thing. I just ran stinger and found nother.

So if I run Norton and the other programs and find nothing, is there nothing I can do?

[Augustine531]

Ok, nevermind. I am finishing the virus scan, and i thought he had already done one. I have already found 27 infected files. Thanks anyway, I'm sure it is probably going to be taken care of.

Aug

[Raptor]

I'm sure it is probably going to be taken care of.

...

[Augustine531]

Nevermind my previous "nevermind". It is still there. I found tons of adware, but no virus. After getting rid of the adware, the problem is still there. Any ideas? Even when I start XP in safe mode the problem is still there.

Aug

[Neil]

What perciselly do you mean by "every icon"? Do you truely mean it? Or are you referring to just the desktop icons? It could be that something has redirected your shortcuts to Microsoft Word for some reason... could be by accident or someone's idea of a joke.

What is the ASCII code displayed.

How did you get Stinger working without using its icon?

I'm not expert, but I don't think the Windows XP built-in firewall is that reliable... get a decent one.

[Augustine531]

Actually, somehow, the program that opens .exe files was changed to Microsoft Word. I was able to fix it in one of the user accounts, by going to explorer and changing the program that opens .exe files. That worked, hopefully I can figure out the other ones as well. As far as getting stinger to work, I ran it directly off of the internet and somehow that worked.

I won't be checking on this again, thank for your replies.

Aug