Share the file, not the virus.

'WARNING! Infected files found. Win32/...vcab.dll...' NOW has three
computers. One middle aged Dell desktop, one inconsistently-functional
Eee, and one Acer laptop. The Acer is the newest of the three. When we
arrived, the Dell's back was broken with viruses and Microsoft popup
window terrorism. Microsoft constantly gave us warnings that it may
not be a genuine copy of Windows XP. The Acer was mostly functional,
although the mouse buttons were slow and the internet didn't work. And
the Eee was lovely – worked like a charm. That's when we came.
Then we brought all the computers out to the clinic to figure out
which ones would stay here and which ones would go back to Freetown.
Before we could decide that, we needed to breathe some life back into
the Dell and fix up the Acer. So we began by wiping the hard drive of
the Dell and then reinstalling Windows. It took a couple of tries of
different Windows CD's that Bailor procured, but eventually we found
one that worked, sort of. It left the screen with 4-bit color and the
smallest resolution. Katie's described the disaster of typing in Word
– the screen just turns black. But after finding some drivers, loading
some antivirus software, and installing the printer, this desktop is
now the flagship of the NOW computer armada.
The Acer had also been wiped and reinstalled sometime in the past, and
since then the network connections had not functioned, hence no
internet. We downloaded and reinstalled some drivers, and then it
worked too, with the printer and the internet.
The Eee, on the other hand, now gives mysterious messages on boot and
then dies. So we are returning it with Allan, and we will get a more
conventional laptop. Our experiment in adventurous technology has not
been a success.
With the help of the Avast antivirus software on Allan's laptop, we
installed solid antivirus protection on our own computers and the
clinic's computers. And then we uncovered the depth of the virus
problem.
Bailor keeps large chunks of his important data on USB flash drives.
These flash drives get passed around between computers, and have
picked up most of the worms and trojan horse viruses that the Dell
carried before we cleaned house. So immediately after plugging in his
USB to the desktop yesterday morning to pass our updated health
education handout to him, the desktop went haywire over his USB. We
deleted a couple of files, but then he became worried we were deleting
his only copies of important info. So then we just began to quarantine
them. There were 21 viruses in the 900 odd files on his USB, and I
haven't had the chance to give it a real scan. It was stressful.
I'm going to teach some classes on how to keep the Avast software
registered so that NOW doesn't run into this problem again.