Dear friends and colleagues, If any of you has received a file named HAPPY99.EXE from me, or anyone else, please be advised that it is a WORM and NOT A VIRUS (Virus's are destructive, Worms just continue to grow and take up space). If you run the program, it will infect your computer. Check your files and search for it. It is " SKA.EXE" to see if you have been infected. I checked and I had it. To remove it, the following instructions are from Semantek (Norton Anti-Virus). You can double check the instructions or read more at the websites below. If I sent it to you, I'm sorry. If you were infected, I would suggest sending this to all in you email directory. Semper Fi JOE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Removing the worm manually: (copied from the Norton website) 1.. delete WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SKA.EXE 2.. delete WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SKA.DLL 3.. in WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ directory, rename WSOCK32.DLL to WSOCK32.BAK 4.. in WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ directory, rename WSOCK32.SKA to WSOCK32.DLL 5.. delete the downloaded file, usually named HAPPY99.EXE Windows prevents you to do step #3 and #4 above if the machine is still connected to the Internet. The file "windows\system\wsock32.dll" is used whenever the machine is connected to Internet (i.e. through dial-up or LAN connection). If you are using dial-up connection (i.e. America Online), you need to do the following: 1.. terminate internet connection 2.. delete WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SKA.EXE 3.. delete WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SKA.DLL 4.. in WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ directory, rename WSOCK32.DLL to WSOCK32.BAK 5.. in WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ directory, rename WSOCK32.SKA to WSOCK32.DLL 6.. delete the downloaded file, usually named HAPPY99.EXE If you are connected to Internet through LAN (i.e. in the office or cable modem), you need to do the following: 1.. From the Start menu, select shutdown-restart in MS DOS mode 2.. type CD \windows\system when DOS prompt (C:\)appears 3.. type RENAME WSOCK32.DLL WSOCK32.BAK 4.. type RENAME WSOCK32.SKA WSOCK32.DLL 5.. type DEL SKA.EXE 6.. type DEL SKA.DLL ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- Semantek: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/happy99.worm.html McAfee: http://beta.nai.com/public/datafiles/valerts/vinfo/w32ska.asp