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    Is this possibly a virus? What to do? (Windows XP)

    Discussion in 'Security and Anti-Virus Software' started by Simic, Oct 7, 2008.

  1. Simic

    Simic Notebook Consultant

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    Earlier today I went into my Control Panel, then into Folder Options and unchecked "Hide protected operating system files" because somebody was helping me check if the jucheck.exe running on my system was a win32 virus.

    Now just a moment ago I was browing through my music files to select some music while to play and noticed that in one of my folders there were several lightly shaded files (as in system files), with titles like:

    AlbumArt_{E38A3E0C-E0E2-4001-AC76-D9061543FD0A}_Large
    AlbumArt_{E590D398-2838-4C8D-BA05-1DA8C2BC4362}_Large
    AlbumArtSmall
    desktop
    Folder

    At first I thought to erase them but was quickly met with a message warning me that these were system files. I have no idea what they could be. When I double click on the AlbumArt files I see the covers of music album covers from what looks like old 70s jazz or something--a couple of them are the same cover with greater and lesser degrees of resolution. I should note that I occasionally browse music blogs that offer old obscure jazz recordings for download from sites like rapidshare, badongo, etc (For those who care, I am a frequent Itunes and Amazon DRM-free purchaser and do not pirate my music!) Anyway, I'm now wondering if perhaps one of these sites didn't embed something nefarious in an album I downloaded...Does that seem like a reasonable conclusion?

    What should or could I do from here? I imagine I should download something to quarantine them? Any recommendations on a freeware diagnostic program?

    Any advice is recommended, as I really don't know what these files are. Thanks.
     
    Simic, Oct 7, 2008
    #1
  2. Waveblade

    Waveblade Notebook Deity

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    I don't know why it looks like a system file but it just looks like some old pictures that were in that recordings you may have downloaded off of rapidshare
     
    Waveblade, Oct 7, 2008
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  3. nizzy1115

    nizzy1115 Notebook Prophet

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    No those are fine. Thats where your album art is stored for your songs!
     
    nizzy1115, Oct 7, 2008
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  4. Simic

    Simic Notebook Consultant

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    Okay, I guess I'm an idiot. I now see other album folders contain similar such files.

    Notably, though, my DRM-free albums from Amazon show only the titles of songs and nothing else (no cover-art system-files). But I know the cover-art must be in there because it shows up in my mp3 players. Perhaps that's what caused concern in the first place, that I hadn't seen them in drm-free albums--that, I think, and the fact that I've been paranoid about downloading an album from such blogs...Are these bloggers really doing this, I sometimes wonder, to share great unavailable music, or are they transmitting other things in the music files. It sound ridiculous, but I know little about computer security, so I tend to err on the side of paranoia.
     
    Simic, Oct 7, 2008
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  5. Tarentum

    Tarentum Notebook Deity

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    You're rambling; what's your question?

    jucheck.exe is Sun Java's updater. It should be wherever in Program Files you installed Java. If it's under windows, that's suspicious. All of this is google-able.

    Cover art and other info is easily embedded inside mp3s and is tacked on at the end (I personally dislike such a practice a lot).
     
    Tarentum, Oct 8, 2008
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  6. nu_D

    nu_D Notebook Deity

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    Reminds me of my AP English class, we had this kid who always shot his papers with a shotgun full of punctuation.

    lol....
     
    nu_D, Oct 8, 2008
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  7. usapatriot

    usapatriot Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Those are the protected operating system files you chose to display in your folder view options that are not normally visible. They're fine.

    /thread.
     
    usapatriot, Oct 8, 2008
    #7