I have been working on a Corps of Engineers RFQ for a month now. It is about 90% done. The response is a mix of Word .doc and Excel .xls files. The secretary and I work over our network where the files are stored on our server. Late this afternoon she started having trouble opening a Word document. About the same time I couldn't open an excel document but was able to open a different one. It didn't take an hour and no computer in our office will open a Word or Excel document. My secretary uses Microsoft Outlook for her email and it won't open either. I have been taking files home to work at night using a USB hard drive. I can still open the files on that hard drive but one taken off our network and copied to that drive won't open. So it's not the programs on our computers but all the word and excel files on our server are corrupted somehow by some fast moving virus or something. Have any of you ever heard of this? I google "can't open word or excel files" but it just gave me dumb stuff. I set Avast scanning the files on our server before I left. I don't know if it found anything but as the files are corrupted somehow, it might not show up.
Anybody?
Most word processing programs have an automatic translation program (set to notify you with a pop up window to ok the translation) that will open documents in other formats.
Often upgrades in one program will affect other program operation.
When this happens, it is necessary to fix the problems of your affected program.
I use WordPerfect and there is a "FIX" routine that consists of inserting the installation disk and it will do the rest and get the program operational.
Also, Avast started taking over my computer and disrupting .dll files and zapping any automatic internet connection routines without giving me a choice of what was good or bad.
This made some commands to not operate inside some programs.
good luckB-)
Somewhere on your server there will be a utility that dishes out licenses to users for these applications. Either something has gone wrong with that utility, or you have maxed out the number available user licenses. Probably a reboot of your server will fix your problem.
OK thanks will check
Check all your files on the usb. Look for suspicious files
One of my guys is there. Said he sees a ransom message. Not good.
At my previous company, we had a virus rip through our local server through our Office files. You were fine until you opened a DOC or XLS or an email. The company sent all their IT people down to fix it, but we got a long weekend out of it.
They rebuilt every computer (about 120) between two offices and both servers. This was several years ago, so I doubt it is the same thing. The whole thing cost the company something like $50,000 to fix. They paid for our off day and all the OT the IT guys received.
I also had the ransom thing on my computer too. There is a way to get it off by restarting the computer in safe mode (with network capabilities), but I'm no expert. I just watched while our IT guy fixed my computer.
Sorry to hear about all this. I hope you can figure it out.
It's a ransom virus. It puts several files in the drives. It identifies itself as Cryptovault and demands payment (hold your &%$%$ breath $%$ %$#%). Fortunately, we had just bought a new server about a month ago so most of our historic data is ok. Also fortunately I had been working on a Corps proposal for about 6 weeks bringing it home almost every night. I lost two days of work on that. I have an IT guy here with my guy trying to get the virus off the infected machine. Once we get it tentacles pried off, we can see what we lost.
Pirate ware. That sucks. There must be some way to trace who did this and put them in a very bad jail for a very long time.
Larry P
