Hi,
First post here, I'm pretty much a novice at this. For about the past year I have been having a "~ under a windows icon" just appear on my desktop from where I know not. I have had a couple people tell me I have a virus, but when I run my virus scan I find nothing. I don't know if this thing is harmful or not I usually just trash it.
Anybody know what it is? I can't get any help from microsoft.

seapappy

Sounds like a hidden Microsoft temporary file. When you open an Office document, MS automatically makes a copy of it. You normally shouldn't see the copy because the folder options are by default set to not show hidden files. Open Windows Explorer and then open the Tools/Folder Options menu. Select the View tab and look down to the "hidden files and folders" option and set to NOT show hidden files.

The icon you see is a bug in Outlook Express which creates a dummy file everytime you make a change in your OE Address Book. You can delete it with impunity. MS claims to be working on it but apparently with no great urgency because it really isn't significant.

Shady Character