So there I was earlier this evening, minding my own business, surfing the www. My Norton anti-virus program told me that it wished to do its weekly virus definition update, so I clicked on OK and away it went, downloading the latest virus definitions.

Shortly after it was done updating its virus definitions Norton anti-virus pops up a warning message on my screen telling me that I have some virus called "Backdoor.Optix.Pro" or some such name (I can't remember the exact name). I clicked on OK and I was going to do a full virus scan, however when I went to click on the program icons on my WinXP desktop I kept getting an error message telling me that Windows cannot find the .exe to start the program and that I should do a search to locate the appropriate .exe for that program icon.

The only icons on my desktop that work are Internet Explorer, MS Outlook, My Computer, and My Network Places. When I click on all the other program icons I get the above mentioned error message. I can't even start up my registry editor by clicking on Start/Run/Regedt32.

Is this error being caused by the above mentioned virus? Or is it due to something else? How can I find and delete the virus? Or am I condemned to reinstall WinXP?

I thought Norton anti-virus was supposed to quarantine any detected viruses? I was thinking of doing an online virus scan using the free version of Panda anti-virus tomorrow afternoon when I have the time.