C:\WINNT blank-name (?) file causes NTBackup hang

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Since the auto download yesterday of Avast v5.1.889, I noticed that my end-of-day differential backup (NTBackup) hangs in C:\WINNT at 100% CPU usage. I tracked it down to a file with a blank-name (or ?, depending on what I view it with, also can look like a little rectangle) and 42 bytes. The Avast install finished when I rebooted today with no problem. I ran an Avast scan on that file with no complaints. I’m pretty sure that file came with Avast, and is probably an artifact of some sort. It is dated about the time of the Avast download. Just remove it or what?

Other than that, no problems with 5.1.889 so far.

Windows 2000, SP4, Rollup 1.

Thanks.

2

I copied the blank-name file to another folder, ran a hex dump on it, and got the following output:

 0: 5B 43 6F 6D 6D 6F 6E 5D  0D 0A 53 42 43 53 65 72 | [Common]..SBCSer
10: 76 65 72 4E 61 6D 65 3D  0D 0A 53 42 43 53 65 72 | verName=..SBCSer
20: 76 65 72 50 6F 72 74 3D  0D 0A                   | verPort=..