OK, I'm back.
now there's a message dialog on the screen from Avast! quick scanner...guess it did the scheduled scan I set up yesterday with Scheduler.
It claims to have
tested: 81424 files
Tested file: C:\D&S\me\Local Settings\App data\outlook\....etc.
and specifying (inexpicably) one particular folder in the archive.pst file (but not specifying a file there). Anyhow, the number tested isn't changing, so I think the only thing is to click on the only button I am presented with in that dialog...Cancel.
Anyhow, the original "Processing results..." dialog appears still to be also creeping through the previously mentioned first file deleted on the results list, seems to have now acheived.......22 bars of what appears to be 26 total (or about 85 % completed on the deletion of 1 of 30 files.
Had started this process, (selected the 30 files for deletion, and clicked Action/
Delete) 2 hours before my first contact...so thats...well it must be about 5:30p your time now, so from 7:30a your time that's about 10 hours to delete 85% of an infected file (of unknown size) which ...there are 29 more behind it, I suppose.
OK, while typing this, I think that the (Processing results...) dialog has just closed...so there is some movement right now...to? who knows what.
30 files are still shown, all selected, among 1826 lines, still the same....just as it was before the 10 hour processing of the first file, and it seems to be waiting as before, for me to select an action.
what was avast DOING for 10 hours???
It seems clear that my system is infected. The infected items seem all to be in archive.pst & outlookbackup.pst, which, based on the particular folders (all mails received, in folders I haven't used in ages), that the infection is OLD. Which means that NAV was even less useful than I had previously thought.
I suppose this means also that I might have actually HAD an active virus (or, more properly, 30 of them) for quite some time. Rueful.
How to know if I'm actually protected NOW, by avast, is a mystery to me.
After all, I thought I had already scanned the C drive for viruses, before enabling all the providers in June...but nope, learned otherwise.
What is my next best move, in the state I'm presently in, as described in excrutiating detail here, in hopes that I might save both myself and others from any further grief?