Despite having up to date anti-virus software, I think I have a confuter virus.

Factual Questions
#1

As the title says, I think I have a virus on my confuter. I turn to you, the teeming millions to help me get rid of it.

It started with an error message saying that my system couldn’t go to standby because I needed to update the driver for my Intel Pro-Set Wireless, blah, de, blah thing.

So, I went to intel and atempted to download an updated driver. That particular problem hasn’t gone away, and now every time I start up my confuter I get a “Found New Hardware!” message, except I haven’t installed anything new, and in the device manager this new hardware is listed as “Other Programs - Unknown Device.” I’ve tried deleting it or uninstalling it, and it appears to keep propegating itself as it keeps showing up.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. FWIW, I have up to date virus software from my employer (it’s McAffee), and I’m running a scan on demand as we speak. My system also does a scan once a day and nothing has turned up. I did recently purchase “And Then There Were None” - a neato mystery game (which I finished) - however, it was just a couple of CDs and they’re no longer in the drive.

I updated to Windows 07 and I’m still getting both of the error messages.

Please help me. <sob>

#2

I’ve never heard of a virus that manifests itself by identifying mysterious hardware for Windows all day. Sounds more like you need to install a driver for a local device, but Windows can’t get enough information to figure out what type of device it is. If I were you I’d start with motherboard chipset drivers.

In the interests of precision, have you installed all relevent updates from Windows updates? (Especially drivers?)
Also, instead of “Other Programs - Unknown Device.” do you mean “Other Devices - Unknown Device.”?
And instead of “Windows 07” do you mean… what do you mean?

#3

That doesn’t sound like a virus - it sounds like a malfunctioning bit of hardware, or a broken driver.

When you right click the ‘unknown device’ and select ‘properties’ (in device manager), is there an option to roll back the driver anywhere?

#4

Your problem is you’ve been installing anti-computer-virus software.

That does not work on confuturs. Indeed, I am suprised you were able to complete the install.

-FrL-

#5

Heh - I guess you can see at least part of my problem (namely, I’m a bit of a confuter cone head).

As far as I’m aware windows is up to date (I searched for updates about a week ago).

I mean Other Devices - Unknown Device.

And I mean Microsoft Office 2007

So, keeping in mind that I tried to install updated drivers and apprarently it didn’t work, is there a particular place I should look for them? I went to microsoft, dell and intel to try to find the one for my pro set wireless, thought that I had installed it, but the problem isn’t solved.

#6

Is confuter a term somewhere else on the globe, or am I being whooshed?

#7

It is a term only in my head. A combo of confuse, confound and compute.

#8

I just tried this and it says that no driver has every been installed for this hardware.

#9

Holy Crap. I fixed it.

Well, thanks for everyone’s ideas. Mod, you could close this I guess.