I hope this is an easy fix/explanation. I cannot find where people have had the same issue (maybe I am putting in the wrong search words) so if you can assist, I would be most greatful.
I installed avast! 4.8, got the registration key and started scanning with a typical scan. After about an hour it was complete but when I went to find a PowerPoint that I was working on for a presentation I could not find it.
I went to START>DOCUMENTS and found EMPTY (Did I mention my presentation was in the next 24 hours?)
My next step was START>PROGRAMS and found EMPTY (nervous laughter is now eminating from my mouth)
I went into EXPLORE and wouldn’t you know it, there is a MY DOCUMENTS folder, but there is nothing appearing in it. -Oh yeah, I am a teacher and the last 6 years seems to have vanished. :
I then looked in my programs and found I still had PPT so I generate a new presentation - hours of work later I was finally ready to get to bed.
Now that I am back from the conference that I had to make this presentation, I am going through my hard drive and have found my files. For some reason only MY DOCUMENTS files on my profile were put in hidden mode. I now can see them but they appear shaded/opaque (as if they should be a hidden file).
Why did the avast! program do this? Is this something I need to live with or can I change the settings so that they are not shaded/opaque looking?
avast! doesn’t do anything like that… so I don’t think it’s really related to avast!.
Can you check the properties of (one of the) affected files? Is the “hidden” attribute really set? Anything suspicous on the Security tab?
What operating system do you use?
Can you possible post a screenshot of the “shaded files” in Explorer?
This is strange. I’ve seen something vaguely similar in the past, but it was related to a corrupted failed install of SP3. Took a bit of troubleshooting and fixing.
What other security software do you have on the computer, and what AV was installed before installing Avast? (If any) And, if so, how did you uninstall it?
Can you have a look in the chest (R.Click the tray icon, Start Avast antivirus, wait till it comes up, click the “Chest” button) and in the “infected files” section, report what is there, please. You may have to maximise the chest/move the column headers to get all the file names.
Do you have any recent experiences with malware, strange popups, or failed windows updates?
Or use SUPERantispyware, MBAM or Spyware Terminator to scan for spywares and trojans. If any infection is detected, better and safer is send the file to Quarantine than to simple delete than.
