Outlook Express deleted everything

[mahadevi55]

I was using Spysweeper and it came back with quite a few viruses. The program quarantined them. Then I restarted the computer and when it came back on several things had changed. The desktop was no longer plain black but a totally different background. The start menu was set back to the XP version when before it was the classic start menu. When I started my outlook express it prompted me to set up my account. All my emails were gone, all my contacts deleted...its like all my old preferred settings disappeared. I had alot of contacts and important emails that I would really like to get back. Is this virus related? Should I take this into be repaired or am I able to? Any suggestions?

[Paul Komski]

It may just be that registry pointers have been changed.

First try searching for any .dbx files and in particular for any inbox.dbx files. If you can find these then recovery of the emails should be quite straightforward by repointing the OE store folder to the folder that contains these .dbx files.

Your contacts will be in an address book file and these have a .wab file extension so also do a search for any .wab files.

If the dbx and wab files have in fact been deleted it is likely that recovery software should be able to restore them - but one step at a time.

I also wonder just what has been quarantined??

[mjc]

There is a very good chance that Spysweeper made a back up of what it did..check for it and restore that back up.

Not everything SpySweeper and related programs finds is viral or even malware related. The best thing to do, is to scan with it, then ask for advice as to what needs to be removed. Many times the bulk of what it wants to remove are items like cookies and usage lists.

Also, SpySweeper is NOT a registry repair tool/'fixer' and it shouldn't be used as one...so any registry repair options should be disabled or set to 'ask' or something similar. Nor is it a full anti-virus scanner. It is a supplemental tool designed to target and remove specific types of malware and should be used as such.