A friend referred me to this forum, as it had proven helpful to him.

BASIC COMPUTER INFO:

I have a computer put together for me in the spring of ’04. It has an Intel Pentium 4 CPU with 2.8 GHz, with 512 MB of RAM. I am running Windows XP Home Edition 2002, service pack 2, with the automatic update activated.

PROTECTION:

I used Norton Antivirus ’04 & ’06, but stopped using it in the summer of ’07. At that time, I started using AVG Anti-Virus Free Ediiton, which automatically updates daily. I sporadically update and run Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2007 - the free edition, Norton Systemworks 2006, Spybot Search & Destroy 1.5, Windowsecurity.com/trojanscan/, and The Cleaner v5 Free Edition.

PROBLEM:

I’m having a big problem, (probably a virus or something), but first I’d like some help with what’s hopefully an easy one.

There’s a folder on my computer that I can’t delete. I’ve tried Unlocker 1.8.6, (which usually works well for me), and EMCO MoveOnBoot 1.10.2.10, but the folder remains.

This was a folder that originally had photos I’d taken in it. That’s all (no downloads or anything else). Now, it has 7 levels of folders underneath it, all with the same name. If I ‘right click’ the ‘start’ button and use explore to find the folder, then open the subfolders, the last one will not open. What I mean by that is, if I attempt to highlight the last subfolder (on the left side of the screen, where I’ve got the ‘tree’ of folder and subfolders), the highlight immediately jumps back to the previous folder. If I ‘right click’ the last subfolder in the tree, I get limited options, ‘delete’ not being among them. All the other subfolders have the ‘delete’ option.

Initially, the top file (with the 6 subfolders beneath it) was marked as private, but I was able to undo that. It shows 0 bytes, 0 files and 6 folders.

If I attempt to delete the file, I’m told the items’ name is too long for the recycle bin. If I attempt to permanently delete the items I get an error, saying access is denied: make sure the disk is not write protected or that the file is not currently in use. If I open Windows Task Manager, the folder shows as an application, which I can ‘end process’, but once done, I have to go through the same procedure I’ve mentioned above to open the file, and then its an open application again, so I’m getting nowhere.

After my attempt to delete the folder is denied, Unlocker opens, showing the folder as the locked path, and the process as Explorer.exe. I attempt to kill process and then delete and Unlocker says “Success, the item was deleted.” But of course it hasn’t been. It’s still there.

I don’t know if this is a glitch or something malicious, but I would appreciate any help you can provide.

Thanks!