This virus/worm seems to be hitting all of us, so I thought I would resend something that I sent to the list earlier this year about the topic of email virus/worms. ------------- To begin with, if you don't have a good virus scanner on your computer, get one and make sure you keep it updated with the latest data files. It used to be that you could go download an update once a month, but lately, once a day may make more sense. If you have a virus scanner and it's not set to keep an eye on your email, make sure you run it on your computer yourself frequently. On a side note, regularly back up any files that you feel are important, such as your genealogy files. Don't open any attached files that have extensions that you don't recognize, especially anything that has "PIF", "LNK", "BAT", "EXE", "SCR" or "COM" for the last file extension. You can't tell by the subject line or the sender as to whether the attached file is a virus or not. I've had the latest virus sent me several times today, and they all had one of the suspect extensions. Some had ".doc.scr" after the actual file name. The last three letters after the final period of any filename are the actual file extension and that's what you need to look at before doing anything. If it's any of the above, delete it, then empty it out of your trash folder. It it was caught by your virus scanner, empty it's recycle bin. Make sure that you have it removed from your computer. If you use any email program that automatically opens all files, make changes to your settings so that it will not open these attachments. That way you will be able to see the name of the file and delete if necessary. If you have been infected, follow the instructions from your virus scanner for removing the virus from your computer. Some of the virus scanner programs have extra instructions that you have to follow in order to completely rid yourself of the virus. Those might involve manually deleting files and/or editing your Windows registry, if you have a PC. Check your scanner software website for more information. You cannot get a virus through a Rootsweb mailing list, since attachments are not allowed. That means that html messages are not allowed either, since they come as attachments. Here is a link to a Rootsweb page that has more information: http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/virus.html Three good virus information sites: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/index.html http://www.cai.com/virusinfo/ http://vil.mcafee.com/ Before passing along a virus warning that you receive, check one of the above sites to make sure that it is really a virus. There are a lot of hoaxes going around too. If you find that it's a virus, contact the list owner before passing along the information. To contact the list owner for any Rootsweb mailing list, send a message to <[email protected]> and substitute the name of the list where it says LISTNAME. Here's a good site to check to see if a message is a hoax or not: http://urbanlegends.about.com/ Connie Snyder NEGenWeb Project State Coordinator