Grandpa's Drink

[bobarotti]

I have this weird file that I downloaded from an email sent to me by a friend. He often sends me such things via firefox and it has gotten dicey whether or not I can open them. The computer doesn't know how to open them. They download and open fine via IE but I don't usually use this. In any case. I was able to download the file and there is an icon in my "downloads" file. The icon appears like any file that the computer doesn't understand, a white sheet with the corner turned down. (Much like a .rar file before it is extracted.) When scanned with AVG it appears to not exist or rather to be empty. Ad-aware scans it and says there is nothing wrong with it. When I hit properties it lists the file but says it contains 0 bytes. When I attempt to delete it, however, it says that it "Could not find this item. This file is no longer located at..." It doesn't appear to be causing any ill effects. My computer is running just fine. And so it goes. Any thoughts. Thanks.
Bob

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

http/www.malwarebytes.org/

update and check it with this free version!

 

[bobarotti]

Thanks. I did as you suggest and thankfully it says my system is clean. The file still remains. Any other ideas anyone?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

use the file assasin within malwarebytes and it will delete it on reboot!

 

[bobarotti]

When I open File Assassin and direct it to the file it says, "File not found. Check the file name and try again" Weird!

 

[bobarotti]

Any other ideas re how to rid my computer of this file? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[bobarotti]

I am still at a loss to rid my computer of this file. Little help? ... please!

 

[brandoncatz]

Boot up in to safe mode and see if you can remove the file (reboot and hit F8 before the Windows splash screen comes up and choose the first safe mode option). I've seen this issue if an anti-virus app has already deleted or quarantined an infected file and the system has not "refreshed" to show this. Seen the same thing sometimes when moving or deleting files. Doesn't happen often, but once in a great while. Normally rebooting will fix it and the file won't be there any more or I can then delete it. In any case, try the safe mode option if rebooting has not resolved the issue.

If a no go there, then maybe remove the drive, if you are comfortable doing so, and slave it to another system (either internally or via an external drive chassis or dock) and see if the file can be deleted that way.