April 1-st virus?

[StillHope]

Just wondering if anyone had a similar experience lately.

On 03/31 I got the e-mail from my builder called "Stunning pictures".
Opened it on the 1-st of April.

Right before that he e-mailed me the pictures of my house from his cell phone.The quality was bad and I mentioned it to him.

So I didn't have any second thoughts while opening it.
When I realized that it's the email with multiple addresses I shut down the browser when it's just started loading 1/10-th of a 1-st picture (the speed was slow).
I called him and was told that the e-mail was sent to him by a friend from CA.

Anyway,I had a bad feeling about it,since one of the addresses was like "unindentified user" or something.

Though I am aware that restoring computer to a previous date is not going to remove a virus,I still restored it one day prior to the
event.

The computer seemed to work OK,Avast and Spybot didn't find anything.

But we all know that bad guys are usually one step ahead...

To-day I was trying to print a document an realize that :

1- My printer device was uninstalled,instead 2 more installed -Microsoft One Note 2007 was one of them.

2- When I noticed an unknown application "User Name" (a part of Microsoft One Note 2007)running in task manager,I stopped it,but the window on Microsoft One Note appeared. I closed it . After it Noticed a new icon of this One Note software.

Though the software itself is legitimate,I never used it.And I definitely didn't uninstalled my own printer device.


Anyway,most likely I'd wipe out the hard disk and start fresh,but I hate doing this.

[PaulW]

People should be vigilant for viruses but don't get too paranoid.

Get yourself a good free anti-virus program (like AVG Free; I hear Avast is good too) and set it to update itself daily, and also to run daily. If you think you have a virus then run it again. It should find it. By the time a virus gets to you the big companies already know about it.

I wouldn't use Outlook for emails (if that's what you're doing) but instead a free web-based email like yahoo, gmail or hotmail.

Just be sensible about what you click on.

I doubt there was any problem with the pictures from your builder.

[StillHope]

Paul, thank you for the input.

I used Yahoo and my updates are current.

If you read the whole post,the e-mail didn't originated from the builder.

I am the only person using my computer and definitely didn't uninstall my printer myself and installed 2 other ones.

May be it's not a virus,but could be another type of malware.

[PaulW]

I did read the whole post. It didn't make much sense so I thought I'd give some general advice.
Good luck.