Help! I can not open Text files?

There is a trojan that diguises itself as notepad.exe - see here

A quick test is to look for "note.com" on your pc or check the size of notepad.exe (which should be around 50k).

[Sociable]

Originally Posted by mixteus

No joy!
I can right click file and change to "open with" Wordpad but it will not play ball with Notepad.

Drastic I know but sounds like best bet is a full format and re-install of Windows.

The source of this problem was almost certainly a worm and at the end of the day starting from scratch may be the quickest as well as safest route.

BTW should you go down this route make sure you have a backup copy of the main MSBlaster patch so that can be applied before reconnecting to the net after the re-install.

[rdhw]

Mixteus,

Both Nemesis and I suggested that you should search your system for filenames of the form notepad.* to see whether there are any bogus files of this name earlier in the PATH than the true notepad.exe, and we have yet to see the full outcome of that. You should post the actual name of the found file (including the extension that Windows hides by default), and the folder name in which it resides. You should also post your current PATH setting so that we can see which directories are included in the PATH before the standard Windows one.

You can also do an sfc to check the Windows files on your system, and this is much less destructive than doing a format and re-installation.

[Sociable]

Originally Posted by rdhw

Mixteus,

You can also do an sfc to check the Windows files on your system, and this is much less destructive than doing a format and re-installation.

Fair point it's just that for the average user the format and re-install can be easier and has the benefit of knowing everything is back as it should be.

Above all, time was my main consideration as often starting from scratch is far faster than trying to work backwards from an already infected system.

But yes I accept it is a drastic solution and as such a last resort only to be used if other fixes dont get the desired result.

[mixteus]

If have now done a scan on my main system and it has also found the same virus.

However after removing the infected files from safe mode I can still open a .TXT file with notepad by default.

I have also done a search for notepad on both PC's, one found 17 files and the other only 9,this leads me to think my laptop is compromised.

Time maybe for the sledgehammer approach of a complete Format and reinstall,I agree with Sociable sometimes it might be the fastest solution to the problem?

I also found this

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/35174.html


Regards