~ icon on desktop

[anvil]

I am continually having a microsoft icon appear on my
desktop that is described only with the symbol ~. From
time to time I get an alert from Norton Firewall that I
have a trojan horse attempting to access my computer. And
of late, the computer has been shutting down
automatically when it goes into stand by mode. What is
going on?

 

[purplehaz]

The ~ icon is a bug with outlook express and the address book caused by a
recent update. MS is working on it. Just ignore it.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

I am continually having a microsoft icon appear on my
desktop that is described only with the symbol ~.

See http://www.pchell.com/support/tildefile.shtml

From
time to time I get an alert from Norton Firewall that I
have a trojan horse attempting to access my computer.

A completely separate issue.

And
of late, the computer has been shutting down
automatically when it goes into stand by mode. What is
going on?

And this is probably a third issue. For shutdown issues, see
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.htm