[Resolved] Why does a double of my MS Word files appear when I op

Hi. I'm not sure if it's a virus or something like that, but my roommate just used my laptop and suddenly now I'm seeing doubles of my MS doc files whenever I open them.

For example, I open the file xyzabc.doc. A translucent looking icon appears in the folder the original file's from. It looks sorta like my file, but says ~$xabc.doc. I have Nod32 and Norton 2009 and neither one detected a threat. I'm also seeing desktop.ini in every folder I open - and on my desktop. The desktop.ini is supposed to be something you can hide or show, but what is with the '~$…doc' files?

Is it a virus?

Hi there

The ~$xabc.doc files you are seeing are files created by MS Word when you are working on a document. These are used as backups and restore files - e.g. if something goes wrong, Word crashes and you lose your work, next time you open Word it can restore the work you lost from these files. They are perfectly legit.

Good question though

Hope that helps.

Oh, phew! Thanks so much. I'll just go try to hide em like the .ini ones.

Glad I could help.

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