Relief

After days of stuggling with the computer, thankfully I can work on it again. The system has stabilised, even though I'm pretty sure there's some kind of malware still lurking in the background. At least the ENTER key works again. Have you ever tried to type paragraphs without using the ENTER key? A clue to the malware: if I key in inverted commas ("), they won't appear until I hit SPACE. If I key in " and then type enter, it becomes ënter. See the two dots over the E? That's just a few wonky things that happen. If it's allowed to get any worse, eventually the keyboard gets a life of its own and starts new lines as you type, breaking up paras, even words, if you're not careful. One night, I left a document open when i fell asleep, the document was a few hundred pages long by the time I woke up! Even worse, trying to open up any document will result in LOTS of them being opened up at the same time, rendering the computer totally useless as you helplessly try to stem the tide of extra files! It's still blipping as I work, so I know the bad stuff is still in there.

It's something I picked up when I borrowed someone's computer for a job early this year, and the bleeping thing made it impossible for me to get any decent notes for the meeting.

On the other hand, I just managed to get a WIndows XP SP 3 and the latest Zone AV update, so I hope it can finally get hold of this menace and get rid of it once and for all. It was 2 days of installing, scanning, adding on, jamming, restarting, scanning again to get to this point, so I REALLY hope this works. Touch wood.