01 April 2009

A Worm called the I-Worm Generic/CJR

There are a lot of times when even we, who call ourselves 'Advanced Computer users', find ourselves upto our eye-balls in, not muck, but embarrassment! Embarrassment coz of the small problem we could not 'fix'. This is for all those then, who want to avoid that funny feeling of being a misfit in the computer fiefdom.

The first issue i'd be addressing is the worm called the I-Worm Generic/CJR.

The I-Worm Generic/CJR copies itself into the \Windows\System32 folder as a dll. Your Anti-virus also catches the worm and refers it to a dll file. Now, this worm tries to send mass mails from your system. It sometimes blocks the browser from connecting to the Internet and Anti-virus websites. This also does an irritating thing : it disables you to view 'hidden' files. Try as many times as you want to, but you just cannot view the hidden files even after several attempts to un-hide them from the Tools>Folder Options>View menu.

This worm can be normally removed by a majority of the Anti-virus programs. But it leaves the above anomaly behind.

Here's the solution then :

1. Use any antivirus to remove the virus first.

2. go to Run menu (winkey+R).

3. type regedit.

4. go the path : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ Advanced\Folder\Hidden\SHOWALL

5. Look at the CheckedValue key (on right side). This should be a DWORD key. If it isn’t, delete the key. Create a new key called “CheckedValue” as a DWORD (hexadecimal) with a value of 1. Also most of the times it leaves the 'CheckedValue' as it is but it changes the value to 2. So all you have to do is change its value back to 1.

You can now make the Tools>Folder Options>View>show Hidden files and folders function normally.