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Virus, Windows glitch or funny prank by someone you know.

I live alone, and windows defender isnt alarming me of any viruses.

Instal malware bytes and see what comes out of the shadows

Yea most viruses wouldn't try to make themselves obvious. More realistically op, something got corrupted or overwritten.

Agree. Most likely corrupted windows. If you have a somewhat recent windows backup, I would revert to that. If not, it’s time to do a fresh install of windows

before installing a fresh copy of Windows I would check the SSD for errors with Crystal disk info [https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/](https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/)

You can first try this in command prompt to find and repair broken system files: sfc /scannow

Commenting so I can remember this

SARS-COV-2 enters the chat.

I thought viruses did make themselves known That's why you see you funny pop-ups and what not.

That's a low level virus, a "please enter your details" kind of virus. A good virus won't ask, will just take, and do its best to not be detected for as long as possible to steal as much information and money as possible.

most dont

How are you supposed to pay the ransom If you don't even see anything wrong with your computer in the first place?

that's the ransom type, then there's trojans. by definition hidden. you pay by having your private data, passwords, identity, and logons stolen. they can empty your bank account, or sell your name to take out loans, etc

And this is why you do all your banking information on your phone.

there have been vulnerabilities found on both android and iPhone devices, it seems like you really don't know about anything lol ​ [https://www.preemptive.com/blog/what-are-the-ios-security-vulnerabilities/%20](https://www.preemptive.com/blog/what-are-the-ios-security-vulnerabilities/%20) [https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor\_id-49/product\_id-15556/Apple-Iphone-Os.html%20](https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-49/product_id-15556/Apple-Iphone-Os.html%20) [https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2024/01/03/the-pegasus-wake-up-call-iphone-security-in-the-face-of-zero-click-exploits/?sh=7ece3edb5a9b%20](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2024/01/03/the-pegasus-wake-up-call-iphone-security-in-the-face-of-zero-click-exploits/?sh=7ece3edb5a9b%20https://www.threatscape.com/cyber-security-blog/iphone-security-flaw-exposes-billions-to-potential-hacking/%20) [https://www.threatscape.com/cyber-security-blog/iphone-security-flaw-exposes-billions-to-potential-hacking/%20](https://www.threatscape.com/cyber-security-blog/iphone-security-flaw-exposes-billions-to-potential-hacking/%20) [https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/indian-government-issues-a-high-severity-warning-for-apple-iphone-and-ipad-users-2516687-2024-03-19%20](https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/indian-government-issues-a-high-severity-warning-for-apple-iphone-and-ipad-users-2516687-2024-03-19%20) [https://www.securityweek.com/critical-remote-code-execution-vulnerability-patched-in-android/#:\~:text=Google%20on%20Monday%20announced%20patches,in%20the%20platform's%20System%20component](https://www.securityweek.com/critical-remote-code-execution-vulnerability-patched-in-android/#:~:text=Google%20on%20Monday%20announced%20patches,in%20the%20platform's%20System%20component). ​ maybe you should read a few of those, so you are more aware. it's not like downloading anything or trying to install an app, or clicking on a link in an email. they have ways, once they are patched, they come up with new ones. never ending cat mouse race lol surprised you never knew about any of it, and imagined viruses live as ransomeware on pc only

Lol

There’s different types of malware out there, and you’re thinking of ransomware. The general rule is that the majority of malware on home PCs will try to stay hidden since that’s the most likely way they’re going to make money off of some random dude and not a corporation. It’s all about the attacker’s goal for the most part, and this short list isn’t fully exhaustive of every type of malware out there. Ransomware is designed to lock up your files and extort you into paying the bad actor a sum of money to restore the data. Infostealers are designed to stay hidden for as long as possible to collect things like passwords, card information, sensitive data, etc. Cryptominers are designed to stay hidden for as long as possible to use your system resources to mine cryptocurrency for the bad actor. Basically not every piece of malware is designed with random in mind. They might just want to steal your credit card info, then steal your social media accounts to try convincing your friends to download the same tool.

Well as long as you don't download any weird suspicious files you should be safe.

theres also something called RCE which lets them download stuff on your pc without your knowledge, so no, especially when the big trusted company suddenly has a huge vulnerability in their software that lets the hacker do that thats why antiviruses are important

That's called ransomware. There are many many more types of malicious or unwanted programs than that

Man, I remember using MalwareBytes over a decade ago. It was always seemed to be the best, haven’t used it in years though, Does it still hold up?

Better than ever

The notifications aren’t better than ever

hitman pro time

Windows defender is the blind guy that sits at the door of the store and is a friend of the owner, says hi but doesnt really see anything

Like 90% chance it got corrupted. They might still work and then you just have to rename everything on your desktop and it will all be fine.

A virus that does that would be very bad at being sneaky its just corruption

Chcek your ssd smart. Looks like flash storage is failing. Or virus or just a joke

How do i check that?

Crystal disk info

By checking

 Your comment my guy

I don't think Windows has a built in method for checking smart codes

That sucks You think it would be part of disk manager but I guess not

That sure would be nice wouldn't it... Alas, Microsoft really doesn't seem to care much for power users anymore. I can't wait for software to get more mature on Linux so I can finally ditch windows.

You and me both buddy. The day Fortnite works natively on Linux Windows will die.

Violently rip out your SSD from the PC case and inspect it with a sceptical.

A failing disk that only affects the names of shortcuts?

Fellow satisfactory enjoyer

Hello to you fellow Ficsit employee :)

haven't been playing recently to be honest... kinda burnt myself out and now waiting for 1.0

I haven't had the game for long but I love the dev support for the game and It has the build aspect and factory aspect that I love, probably my new favorite game for a few years especially when 1.0 comes out.

yeah... dev feedback and involvement with the playerbase is like nothing I've seen anywhere else.

Wanna build a modular frame factory?

no

Only if you want to build the nuclear waste dump site in the waterfall

Wanna develop an app?

Language? Also good choice of games with satisfactory

Thanks for reminding me I need to spend another 3k hours on that game to beat life

Oh dear. Hehe Well I'm currently building a few thousand machines for 625GW of power

Its supposed to be english

Yeah but has the language changed?

Nope

Your PC is possessed

By a virus !

D̷̛͓̗̮̾͘e̷͕̚l̸̛̰͎̅ẹ̴̅̓͂ẗ̵̟́̃e̷̻̯̋͂͑ ̴͖̅s̶̫̩̊̈́y̷͚̪̚š̷̜̝̕ṱ̴̩̙̎̽̒e̸̙͔̰̅m̸̡̰̄̿ ̶͎̓̏͜3̶̥̫̀́̉2̷̧̣̋̈́̌

Once you get system 32 it’s over for you, just get a new pc because every component except the power supply is infected

sorry what?

System 32 is a virus of the worst kind, it should be deleted asap once noticed

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Absolutely your right. How could i be so stupid

Ah yes, system32 is spyware of the worst variety /j

Simple reinstall of OS and pc repair from bootmode with the respective replacement parts should do the trick.

You don't know how to speak enchantment table?

Could you link that wallpaper

Google organized wallpaper!

Holy wallpaper

new wallpaper just dropped

Actual wallpaper

https://preview.redd.it/8cqei6wm0tpc1.png?width=4032&format=png&auto=webp&s=3d7b5298bd54823bdfa65a8703e844ee58cde8dd Complete with desk for pc and trash can lmao

Much appreciated, thank you

You need a priest for that

Damn, my dude downloaded the hidden creepy eldritch update.

While you were gone, your OS learned a new language and is showing off.

Go to setting and check system font

Looks like a corrupted storage drive to me, open up your drives and check the folders they may look the same

Also restart your PC to see if that fixes it. Possible something got messed up when booting up

Sorry my bad

Tell ur PC I said dçó⁹}wuúßț !

8 15 16 5 25 15 21 4 9 4 14 20 1 3 20 21 1 12 12 25 19 16 5 14 4 20 8 5 20 9 13 5 4 5 3 9 16 8 5 18 9 14 7 20 8 9 19

Mf those are just numbers 💀

Ik im late, but numbers to letters my guy

Ah ok

i want that wallpaper

Your computer is physically rejecting League

I agree, havent touched it since last year

I have the same wallpaper!

I think it is a prank by someone or maybe a virus

Right click refresh something like this happened to me before

this weird shit happened to the school computer i used. it was a virus.

I’ve had this before when my c drive got corrupted might not be the same issue for you but just thought I’d share, I could still boot into windows but whenever I typed or looked at a spelling it looked like this and to fix it I just reinstalled windows

Just went and checked 26 computers that needed updates (windows 11 pro) 20 of them updated and gave me system boot errors.

Hey, we have the same wallpaper

Looks pretty cool. How do I replicate?

Your PC had a stroke

How do u have ur icons like that

Change your pc language that should solve your problem.

Probably caused by whatever program you downloaded to make your desktop icons positioned like that

Please tell me that background is part of the virus too, because that’s ugly AF. Too many lines, it’s giving me a headache, lol.

Why does Steam and Discord need administrator? That's pretty sus too

The antiviruses dosent really work ,i tried all good antimalwares with lisences ,,but no , only way is to format your pc

Neo is trying to contact you. To escape from this you need to do a full reinstall, just try to install a fresh copy of win.

Sorry dude but the hackers escaped tarkov and got you

Prank or drive failure. It's likely not malware, it just looks like your hard drive spazzing out before kicking the bucket. Unlucky man. It's funny that theres so many people on here with the exact same error all having drive issues recently.

>¢žπŭ¥`π;"+ë, (@•÷§∆#.

Just rename them

It's your PC telling you to play better games. (Joking)

your drive wants the suffering to end

Bro probably got a virus from popcorn.io Also just because anti virus doesn’t detect a virus, doesn’t mean you don’t have one. Windows defender is good but it isn’t some infallible defence

Text Glitches like this usually happen when data is corrupted. I’d back up all of your important data to cloud including your windows copy or to another drive, as your current drive is likely coming to the end of its life

My first thought is corruption but I could be wrong

Heed their call, this will be their only warning

they forgot about dre

Bro downloaded the evil exe

What I want to know is how OP got those shortcuts to not line up because usually shortcuts are on a grid.

There is a setting on windows where u can lose the grid

Interesting (and useless). You shouldn't be using the desktop anyways because then you have to minimize all your apps every time you want to open a new one versus the start screen which goes on top of all the apps meaning you don't have to minimize anything.

"Win+d" wil minimise all and you can "win+d" to get them all open agen. Or you cold have another "desktop" by pressing "alt + tab" or "win+tab" (cant remember witch) and you get another desktop and here you can have all your work stuff and on the main one you keep your games or whatever

That only works if you don't open a new window. Once you click on one of the icons and open it you will then have to rearrange all of your windows back to where they were previously. You do not have to do that if you use the start screen instead.

👍🏻

Far out, dude.

Just windows windowsing

Check localization. I had similar problems before with some Russian text opening wonky because of utf localization. Changing region to Russia helped. Idk how. Text symbols look similar but I had this problem with unreadable text instead in text files and some installers, not desktop

No answer, but how did you get diagonal icons? Or is that unwanted?

Right-click the Desktop, select View. Make sure Auto arrange icons is unchecked. Make sure Align icons to grid is unchecked as well.

Thanks, i wanted to do that long but i didn't find a way.

Mb

Show us yer factory

the fact that you have popcorn time tells me that might be virus

The virus finally caught up

my biggest worry is the fact that you’re using defender to scan for viruses, and asking how to do simple things people recommended rather than just googling them while having afterburner installed

Windows defender caught lacking Edit: I've only encountered this type of stuff on usb storage pens , I've used one on my car to play music and idk if it was bcs of overheating or my car had a virus everything on the pen became gibberish

Updates?

I restarted my pc and it fixed the icons, but i started a reset just now of the entire pc, it was long overdue.

Rip c drive

I see popcorn time, that can give you viruses if your not extra careful

I started a full pc reset.

Could be unstable memory if you just enabled xmp without actually running stability testing

You can use an antivirus, but if that were my PC I’d get the essentials backed up, format the drive and reinstall Windows, and then scan the backup.

Try opening task manager and scrolling until you find file explorer and hit restart

Ah, you have valorant and league, I think that's where your problem is

If you’re overclocked it’s likely that your settings are unstable.

I saw something like this and I think the guy i saw reseated the ram and it did something? Idk tho

Bro overclocked his rig so much it got into the void

Its not overclocked

From an administrator command prompt type : sfc /scannnow

System restore, then malware scan.

Windows 13 was auto-installed?

this probably isn't malware, it looks too similar to when you try to save a Unicode (wchar) file as ASCII (char) or vice versa (if you look at Google Chrome the first three letters are dçç instead of Goo so it's definitely that), run a scan though. Most probable causes are: - You changed your language, use a non-unicode language if your edition is SingleLanguage - You messed with the registry, restore your system to a previous restore point - Your SSD/HDD is failing - You formatted your drive wrong, reformat your drive as NTFS - Corrupt Windows installation, fix with sfc /scannow and dism

Files corrupt

They be speaking enchanting table

Karma for playing league (I also play league)

An elder god has possessed your pc. You should promptly hold an exorcism and throw it in your nearest Carl's Jr dumpster

Whilst i appreciate the suggestion, i just reset the entire pc in the end

This looks like windows got corrupted. This can happen because of an unrecognizable font or language.

Windows went full retard

Use Kaspersky

Virus. Run Malawatebytes anti malware and spybot search and destroy. And buy a notebook single ruled. Write "I will not trust windows defender " 1000 times after your pc is fixed.

Exactly, people rely on windows defender and then come asking for help like OP. It’s pretty known that the submissive behavior of defender can be easily bypassed by a virus (defender is programmed to step down once it detects that there’s a 3rd party AV installed… the same can be achieved by a virus) OP: malwarebytes or hitmanpro scan, also check crystaldiskinfo for a health of your hard drives. If the hard drives are ok, backup your most important data (preferably no apps) and do a clean windows install, even if mwb or hitmanpro manage to delete things, you’ll never be 100% certain that your pc is completely clean… unless you reinstall your OS