MALWARE :^(

[Late Monday night] When I clicked a link (I don't remember where), my anti-virus software popped up a warning message about MALWARE. Did I want to remove the malware -- you bet! But then I couldn't run Wordpad, AVG (anti-virus software) or IrfanView (image editing software), etc. IE 8 still ran, though. Curious. I knew the registry had been damaged somehow.

[Tuesday] Thanks to a very helpful friend, FIXSWEN.INF from McAfee was used to fix the problem. I didn't need to reinstall Windows XP :-)

Friend realized that AVG had deleted the virus but not before the virus had changed the registry to point to itself. Since it was now deleted, the .exe files were pointing to nowhere and would not run. Not all the applications in the registry had been changed (since IE 8 still ran).

Later, I was able to run and update AVG, scan the hard drive (no virus found) and get back to normal laptop activities. Whew!

What I should have done (and must now remember to do) was to back up more than just my data files. I keep backups of the text and photos I create but I've been negligent about OS and applications. It's time to start a new backup scheme.