Viruses I got today. Help Please.

[Pholover]

Hi, I've attached the scan log image file of the files and viruses I got affecting their corresponding directories.  First action I took was to Move it to Chest.  I'm wondering how to get rid of the virus without affecting those files.  Thanks for your help.

[ady4um]

That's strange. Two of those files are from Avast itself, and one of those 2 is a text log file.

[Pholover]

Yes it is strange.  Hoping someone knows what's up with that.

[DavidR]

Not too much of a surprise.

1. Given that you have had an email alert the details of that alert are also recorded in the emailshield.txt (log) file, why the detection information is detected is what is strange. So that is two down, see #### below on how to resolve.

2. the other entry, not a detection but a missing file is as a result of avast housekeeping.
- Nothing to worry about, those are are files in old virus definitions folders and avast is doing some housecleaning to keep the size used on the hard disk to a minimum. This just happens to have occurred between the time you started the scan and it reaching that old defs folder.

####
Effectively you have an email in the Inbox that avast considers infected, so you need to find that email and manually delete it, empty deleted items folder and compact your folders. I can't help with how to find it as you have obscured some of the information. Don't use the Inbox for general storage, treat it as an office in tray read the information and respond to it (if required) and move it to a folder suited to its content. This should make the inbox smaller and easier to find suspect email.

Find (see ~~~~ below) and rename the emailshield.txt file to emailshieldOLD.txt and reboot that should recreate the emailshield.txt. To be able to do that you need to first disable the avast! Self-Defence module; avastUI > Settings > Troubleshooting, uncheck the 'Enable avast! self-defence module' option and stop the Mail Shield, so the file isn't in use. Don't forget to enable the avast! self-defence again when you are done.

~~~~
EmailShield.txt location: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\AVAST Software\Avast\report\EmailShield.txt (XP) C:\ProgramData\AVAST Software\Avast\report\EmailShield.txt (Vista, Win7). This may be a hidden location so you may have to change the Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options, View, hidden files and folders.

[Pholover]

Thanks DavidR for all the help.
I did rename emailshield.txt to emailshieldold.txt and a new got created as it should've however the old one is still there.  Should I delete it?

That's a good point to move emails you want to another folder as my inbox got deleted, luckily nothing too important I think.

What should I do with the files in the chest?  The files remaining are that email address I have on thunderbird and the emailshield.txt.  Should I leave them there or delete?  Thanks very much for your help and advice!

[DavidR]

You're welcome.
Of course the old one you renamed emailshieldOLD.txt would still be there and yes now the new one has been created, and the Mail Shield is working correctly (?) you can safely delete the renamed emailshieldOLD.txt file.

Yes the inbox is the most prone to problems corruption, deletion, as it is usually open if you have a crash, etc.

There is no rush to delete anything from the chest, a protected area where it can do no harm. Anything that you send to the chest you should leave there for a few weeks. If after that time you have suffered no adverse effects from moving these to the chest, scan them again (inside the chest) and if they are still detected as viruses, delete them.

That is the general rule, though in the case of the emailshield.txt, yes delete it as you don't want to restore that.