On the school system where I work, the computer in my room has been backing up the desktop of this computer (Win 98SE) to the main server (Windows/Novell) into a file specifically for Pegasus Email data only.

The tech co-ordinator and I have both been through this machine with a fine toothed comb and cannot figure out why.

The real issue is that this slows down backups of those data folders on the server - plus - WHY is it doing this? This computer is the only one on the entire network doing this - out of a couple hundered machines!

What I did find last week was that my "cookies" folder was also getting backed up - BUT the data in the cookies folder being saved to the server did not match what was on this computer. Instead it contained 567 cookie files with user names of people who have not even been at this school in a couple of years.

What is suspected is that that former student had planted some sort of backdoor/keystroke recorder a few years back and this was what was causing the funny behavior. Unfortunately, the tech co-ordinator does not remember the fix for when this was discovered on other computers a couple of years ago.

What happens is that every time this computer is restarted/shutdown/booted/ogged off and on/etc. it looks for and saves data from this machine. It includes not only a cookies file that does not match the one on this computer, but saves a folder of "Application Data" (with copies of the applications that are represented on the desktop with shortcuts), as well as copies of any folders that may appear on the desktop other than the recycle bin.

I finally just deleted my user from the computer last week. This cured the problem for 1 day, but now it has returned. The only plus is that the cookies folder no longer contains all of those 567 supposed mystery cookie files.

This is driving my tech co-ordinator batty. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

I am afraid to try to back everything important up and F-disk this thing - as I don't know what particular file is causing this....