Oddly Named Folder in C Drive

Norton Security | Norton Internet Security
1

Hello again!

 

My friend (who I help with his computer from time to time) very recently (as in, 10 minutes ago) discovered some oddly named folders at the top of his C drive. An example of these folder names is:

 

2d6750a4804e189000ddd55437ce

 

He can't access them, open them or anything. In fact, he doesn't have permission to open it, with the only permission allowed being from "system" even though he is his computers Administrator. He scanned with Norton and it was given the green light that its ok.

 

He has, understandably, freaked out and I think hes going to go overboard with system restores.

 

Related to this, on my older computer (which is mostly dead, hardware failure on a gigantic scale) I had folders that were named in a similar fashion, the difference being, I could open them. They contained an odd text file that when I clicked on it, windows gave me a message along the lines of "Don't touch this if you don't know what you're doing, it MIGHT be important".

 

Is this a virus, spyware, data corruption, fragmented files, or just an harmless oddity that can be resolved easily? My friend is running N360, latest updates and everything.

 

Edit: Got posted as a wall of text.

 

I googled this to the best of my ability, I'm not sure if I could have searched this particular question any better, but the most I found was; various notes to old XP viruses, a few trojans that like to drop thousands of txt folders in a computer, and what appears to either be a backdoor or some one managing to shred their OS boot files.

 

Edit 2: The files on my older computer are "BAK" files. I can only guess that he has the same BAK files on his as well.

2

Hi,

 You can right click the folder and select properties, that might give you some clue as to what generated the folder and files.

 My first guess is that is a temp folder created by windows update that might get deleted in a day or two or when your computer is rebooted.

  I have folders similar to that and I don't concern myself with them especially if you have scanned it as you say you have. You can scan with Malwarebytes free version if you want further assurance that the file is clean.

  I also wondered if you have selected to view protected operating system files and folders. If you have you will see many long numbers.

 Open Computer

Select Organize on the toolbars left side. Select Folder & Search Options.  Select View Tab . Check the box in front of Hide Protected Operating System Files. This should help protect the important files.

3

Kmoore is correct, they are left over folders from windows update.  For larger updates windows will create a temporary folder in the root of the partition that has the most free space availible,  The folder name is a very long string of random numbers and it's supposed to get cleaned up on the reboot after the update is installed.

 

The folder will only have "system" permissions, you need to change the permissions or ownership to include Admin or your username to be able to look inside or delete them.

 

Usually when you look inside you will see leftover files and stuff that will identify what it was for.  Or you may be able to compare the folder creation date with your windows update log, or the date shown under add-remove programs when it's set to show updates as well as programs.

 

Dave

4

Thank you.

 

I never knew what they were and why they were there so unless Norton or Malwarebytes said there was a problem, I left them alone. Now I can completely ignore them!  I'll tell my friend he can stop worrying too :smileytongue:

 

Thanks again for your help.

5

Ok but with all of that you also mentioned bak files.

If they are BAK files they are probably to do with backup files and better left alone.