Yes, it was one of those. Work PC was struck by a nasty virus yesterday, even though I have the Telus Antivirus (which is shitty as hell. You may as well be sitting there in the open for all the security it affords you). I tried to solve the problem: ran the virus scan (which detected nothing), Ad-Aware (which removed a load of stuff), Hijackthis (which cleaned up a few more).

Everything seemed OK until I logged in this morning. Windows Auto Update had turned off, the destop had changed and the computer kept shutting itself off. To make matters worse, the virus had taken over my browser. I tried the Panda scan (which failed miserably and ended in an auto shutdown when the computer wouldn't let me download the small installer), I tried the free AVG scanner (also a disaster because someting in the browser kept blocking the AVG webiste - along with a number of other sites such as McAfee and Norton).

I finally gave in. I did the last system back-up 2 months ago (I do one every three months), so I gave in. I decided to kiss good-bye to the last 2 months of work and reformatted the drive. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to remember the important things I needed to re-install.

The thing to do tomorrow: buy and install Norton. I'm done with this Telus bull-shit.