Hello all. I installed Avast! Home edition this evening after being referred by a friend. I ran the scan to check for a virus (I actually had 4 and DIDN’T find the one I was looking for). Immediately afterwards I logged onto the Avast! website to see exactly what I was supposed to do with the viruses that the scan had directed me to put into the chest. I clicked on the search box and tried to type in -virus cleaner- and much to my suprise, my lowercase ‘r’ key brought up the run programs page, my lowercase ‘e’ key brought up the my computer page and the lowercase ‘w’ key brought up the find files or folders page. This is not a problem that I have EVER had before. I say ‘lowercase’ because when I hit the caps lock key the problem stopped. When I restarted my computer it stopped and I regained the use of those keys.
Also, since loading Avast! and running the scan, my computer keeps crashing. It has done so 3 times - any time I have more than one page up.
the keys that are causing the problems are Windows short cut keys. Could the alt or ctrl key be stuck? I occasionally had the same trouble on my old Windows ME machine. It was caused by an old MSDOS game I used to play. If the game failed to exit correctly the key mapping would be screwed up and pressing single keys would open search or close windows etc.
The three crashes are harder to explain because you don’t say which operating system you use or when they occur. The more info you can give will make it easier to help you.
Windows Logo Keys
The Windows logo key, located in the bottom row of most computer keyboards is a little-used treasure.
It is the shortcut anchor for the following commands:
Windows: Display the Start menu
Windows + D: Minimize or restore all windows
Windows + E: Display Windows Explorer
Windows + F: Display Search for files
Windows + Ctrl + F: Display Search for computer
Windows + F1: Display Help and Support Center
Windows + R: Display Run dialog box
Windows + Break: Display System Properties dialog box
Windows + Shift + M: Undo minimize all windows
Windows + Tab: move through taskbar buttons
Windows + L: Lock the workstation (or switch to the Logon screen w/Fast User Switching enabled)
Windows + U: Open Utility Manager
Does this answer your questions? Maybe your Windows keys have trouble…
I checked the ‘windown +’ keys. Wow! I am pretty handy around a keyboard and I didn’t even know that!
Ok, I don’t think that my keyboard’s messed up though. I have never had any problems out of it. Could it be related to doing the virus scan? That is when the problem started, not when I downloaded the program. I don’t guess it’s that important now - being as the problem i fixed - it’s purely out of curiosity now!
Ok, on the machine crashes - I am running Windows 98. I do have another virus on my machine that the scan didn’t pick up. lexplore.exe it does cause my system to run extremely slow - maybe it crashed because I downloaded something else. Who knows!
I think not. Maybe a mechanical problem or the key stayed pressed in the keyboard, or something weird like that.
Why don’t you boot in Safe Mode (pressing F8 while booting) and run avast from there?
Running a-squared and/or SpyBot won’t hurt either, on contrary, they will help you get clean.