Vista Folders and Files, where should they be?

[Charles]

Can anyone tell me where I can find a list of all the Folders and Files Vista
puts on my PC?

A bad guy, so far a non-malicious nuisance, I haven’t seen any time bombs
yet, got in and messed with my new Vista machine. After paying Norton $100
for three of their “black box†techs to waste 3 or 4 hours to go poking and
probing my CPU and running smit???fix.exe, the only result they got was
frustrating me. They don’t have a clue.

Suddenly, appearing all over my C:\Drive, a big bunch of strange Folders
invaded my PC

1. All the Folder icons have that little "shortcut" arrow.
2. Left click gets you “Error message - Location not available - Access is
deniedâ€
3. Right click >> Properties >> General Tab reveals
A. The name of the File Folder
B. The "shortcut" icon
C. The name of the Folder in the box to the right of the icon
D. "Target:" is blank
E. "Comments: is blank
F. "Created:†Wednesday, December 26, 2007, 6:16:34 PM or
Wednesday, December 26, 2007, 6:20:42 PM (Date Time Group = DTG)

These Folders were scattered thruout my Windows Explorer folder tree, at
various level down from the root level. All the bogus Folders can be
deleted to Recycle Bin, and Drag and Dropped to just about anywhere.

Some but not all of the bogus folders carry names like "My" Music, "My"
Pictures, and "My" Documents. These are Win XP names, as Vista has dropped
the "My' and the My-less
Folders became Pictures, Music, and Documents.

These bogus Folders do NOT show up in a Windows *.* Search, even when
selecting the non-indexed and hidden file/folder option. A right click >>
Properties >> General Tab reveals Size: 0 bytes, Contains 0 Files, 0
Folders.

The above describe Folders that apparently had no contents. There are other
“shortcut†Folders with the exact same DTG’s as above that doe contain file,
and there a some files hanging around that have no content with the same
DTG’s as above.

Anyway, I’m about the task of ridding my CPU of all this. To do this, if I
can find pout what Folders are supposed to be where, I can deleted the
invaders.

Thanks,

Charles

 

[Saucy]

Can anyone tell me where I can find a list of all the Folders and Files
Vista
puts on my PC?

A bad guy, so far a non-malicious nuisance, I haven’t seen any time bombs
yet, got in and messed with my new Vista machine. After paying Norton
$100
for three of their “black box†techs to waste 3 or 4 hours to go poking
and
probing my CPU and running smit???fix.exe, the only result they got was
frustrating me. They don’t have a clue.

Suddenly, appearing all over my C:\Drive, a big bunch of strange Folders
invaded my PC

1. All the Folder icons have that little "shortcut" arrow.
2. Left click gets you “Error message - Location not available - Access
is
deniedâ€
3. Right click >> Properties >> General Tab reveals
A. The name of the File Folder
B. The "shortcut" icon
C. The name of the Folder in the box to the right of the icon
D. "Target:" is blank
E. "Comments: is blank
F. "Created:†Wednesday, December 26, 2007, 6:16:34 PM or
Wednesday, December 26, 2007, 6:20:42 PM (Date Time Group = DTG)

These Folders were scattered thruout my Windows Explorer folder tree, at
various level down from the root level. All the bogus Folders can be
deleted to Recycle Bin, and Drag and Dropped to just about anywhere.

Some but not all of the bogus folders carry names like "My" Music, "My"
Pictures, and "My" Documents. These are Win XP names, as Vista has dropped
the "My' and the My-less
Folders became Pictures, Music, and Documents.

These bogus Folders do NOT show up in a Windows *.* Search, even when
selecting the non-indexed and hidden file/folder option. A right click >>
Properties >> General Tab reveals Size: 0 bytes, Contains 0 Files, 0
Folders.

The above describe Folders that apparently had no contents. There are
other
“shortcut†Folders with the exact same DTG’s as above that doe contain
file,
and there a some files hanging around that have no content with the same
DTG’s as above.

Anyway, I’m about the task of ridding my CPU of all this. To do this, if
I
can find pout what Folders are supposed to be where, I can deleted the
invaders.

Thanks,

Charles

Vista carries what are called "NTFS Junction Points" with the old names used
by Windows XP e.g. My Documents. They look like shortcuts to folders but are
not. Clicking on them gets a person nowhere etc. They are there as part of a
mechanism enabling backward compatibility. They are set as 'hidden' so
normally users do not even know they are there.

That said, if you are sure there are other folders being created by
malicious software and neither you nor the technicians nor the wiz-kid are
able to remove the malicious software, then your system is hosed and you
need to backup your data, repartition your harddrive, format it and
reinstall Windows and your programs. Before restoring your data, scan it for
infection lest you become infected again.

I would suggest you make sure the fix for the virus you use is a legitmate
fix. Some of the fixes from slick websites are really just more of the same
malicious stuff. Make sure to get a good fix and try again if you thinkyou
are still infected.

[NTFS Junction Point]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junction_point

Saucy