paddyc: good idea is (mentioned by Eddy, i guess) to run a repair console from the OS installation CD (or some linux distro with NTFS driver) and look for the file in "offline" mode.. but if you're not experienced in using the repair console (and "old" dos commands) it would be a risk to try something...
Maxx I will try anything once...............but I do have a couple of questions before we get there.
Is it possible that I have a corrupt copy of Avast and perhaps it is seeing something that is not there? Remember that I had RPC problems that would not go away after the initail set up, which were resolved by the update but then the update started my problem off. Would an uninstall and reinstall perhaps be an option? I know that along the way we have found some viruses but none that have appeared to be dangerous or active.
Second point is that I note that some of what has been found refers back to Pinnacle. I have had a number of problems over the years with Pinnacle. The original copy of my computer software had some cd software by Pinnacle which got lost somewhere along the line. A reinstall from the reload disc brought it back up but it got lost along the way again. later I bought a TV pro Hybrid stick with pinnacle software which worked fine but a couple of months back I tried to do an uninstall which went wrong and did not seem to clear out all the files it should have. I then uploaded new software from Pinnacle which seemed to be working fine. Later when I was having all these problems I noticed that streamserve seemed to be in constatnt use so I decided to uninstall all the Pinnacle software. I note that Dr web picked up Pinnacle Distan as a possible virus but it's main objective is to allow TV To b estreamed to another computer such as a laptop.
Short version - is it possible that what is being picked up is some orphan files that were not properly cleared down by the Pinnacle uninstalls?
I am really stretching now