Please help. I ran a scan with Superantispyware (free) and during the scan avast 4.8(home) found two win32 viruses and one win32a virus. The first two were in wma files and I deleted them. The win32a was found in c:\system volume information_ restore {2466A83D-1B81-456E-9766-38C2B7E48210}\RP1317\A0080039.exe. I’m not too computer savvy, but this sounds like it’s in my system restore files. Is this right? I moved the file to the chest, but what should I do now? Is my system restore going to work if I need it? Has this virus corrupted it? Do I need that file for system restore to work correctly? Should I delete the file? I would very much appreciate some advice! Thanks very much!
As a general principle, it is always better to quarantine malware than to delete it, in case further investigation shows it to be a false detection. (All antimalware scanners have these occasionally.)
The particular restore point will be non-functional, that is the only “bad” effect from removing an item from system volume information. It only matters if you had needed that restore point. I set system restore fairly low on my system. If something goes wrong, lets face it, you only really need one or two good restore points. (Provided they work.)
System restore can be a handy tool, but it isn’t best to rely on it for restoring your computer in case of Bad Things Happening. Can be unreliable. Best to regularly backup your important files to an external media.
Thanks for the reply. I’m not too worried about a system restore point, so I’ll just delete the one in question. I just wasn’t sure if that was what that particular file was! Thanks!