Well, yesterday when I got home from band practice, I sat down on my computer to check my standard route of internet sites, and my stupid desktop icons kept moving away from my cursor. I rebooted, but still no dice. Does anyone know of the hack or virus that causes this, and how one could rid himself of it? Tis not horribly debilitating, but certainly annoying…
Well, off the top of my head I know this is a symptom of the W32/Magistr virus (I was looking that one up to help Gunslinger). It happens if your computer has been infected with the virus for two months: http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.magistr.24876@mm.html
It might also be a symptom of a different virus. I dunno. I’m not too helpful.
Oh, spend the 30 bucks on an antivirus program, for God’s sake. They are usually much more painless than trying to manually edit your registry.
I got bit a few weeks ago by the W32Magistr virus that racinchikki mentions, and that is one of its tricks. Others do that as well.
I got Norton SystemWorks (~$65) that includes Norton AntiVirus (NAV) and it found and removed the virus. Incidentally, if that’s the one you’ve got, the icon hijack is way down on its list of tricks. I wound up reinstalling NT.
The trouble with NAV is that it wants to install itself in Auto-Protect mode. My primary application comes out with a new version once or twice a week, so I’m constantly installing software. NAV does not like new stuff. You pretty much have to get rid of NAV in between virus battles.
Anyway, good luck with it.