Okay, I'm an idiot--virus question

Factual Questions
1

Hello, all!

I was getting ready to do some work this evening, and noticed two strange files on my desktop-- ~WRD1513.tmp and ms5939.tmp. I have no idea how they got there, and my first thought is, “Oh, hell, a virus!” Now this morning, after reading the thread about nimda, I ditched the preview panel in OE. Shortly after that, I received an email from someone I didn’t know (not unusual, since it was addressed to my website email account) with an attatchment (that’s unusual). I promptly deleted it without opening or previewing it. That was this morning.

Then I find these files, go looking for information about nimda, and hear you can get nimda from a website. So I reread the nimda thread, checked my sys.ini and found nothing alien in the shell=explorer part. No sign of load.exe. Symantec’s free online virus scan found nothing odd.

What the hell??? What are these files, and where did they come from? Do I have a virus??? Or is this something normal and obvious??? Or what???

2

.tmp is just a general convenience for naming “temporary” files. The first one you mention is an autorecovery tmp file that Microsoft word uses. The other could be anything.

Not viruses.

3

It looks like you were working on a WORD file which was on your desk top and which was not properly closed, maybe because the computer crashed. Not a virus.

4

Thanks, guys!

I was hoping it was something stupid like that. I’d never seen those before, and I’d rather feel really stupid than have a virus.

I feel really stupid. Hooray!!! :slight_smile: