This is a good reminder for us all: never, ever, ever open an email attachment. Even if it's from a "trusted" source, even if it's from a professional source-- it can still carry a virus.
I bapped myself upside the head when someone mentioned the "repair Windows" function. Something at the back of my noggin told me I was forgetting something in my last post and duh, there it is. If you can get in far enough to initiate a "Windows Repair" or like someone mentioned, a restore to prior date, that's the ticket. Sounds like you haven't been able to get that far though.
Yup, viruses can do what you've described (hopefully it's not a Bios virus). I agree at this point with jlockley... after a certain amount of headache, often the best choice is to do a non-destructive reinstallation-- and I agree with the 8 hour mark. It takes about 4-8 hours for me to totally reinstall my system, so that's the breakpoint. At least it's not the days of 95/98 where you'd lose data as well.
I think it's a crying shame that Micro$oft is so paranoid about piracy that they don't allow a complete system file-by-file backup. I hate mirror backups because they don't permit partial restores. But, Micro$oft is paranoid, so best we can do is a Repair (if we can get that far in) or a non-destructive reinstallation. (Too bad too, because these days with Windows Authentication, they don't really have a reason to be copy paranoid any more. And if they'd have sold Windows for $29.95 as they should have... they'd have never had to worry about piracy in the first place).
Doncha just hate though, having to reset all those IM, Word, and other programming preferences all over again? I'd rather chew carbon.
---***--- Drew Software deals in Personality Management software designed to reduce employee turnover by matching people to the right jobs and improving workplace communications.
