I download a whole lot of stuff on webdav, ftp, and other places (e.g. rapidshare) and speed download has paid for itself over and over in ease of use.

but I understand about the not liquid part.

sssh. rumor has it, U-verse is coming out with an app and gizmo to transfer recordings to the iPhone.

So I think I have a virus, but neither AVG nor Malwarebytes find anything fishy with my system. I scanned the HijackThis logfile and didn't see any virus names either.

If I'm using Paint and I go to File -> Open, the program closes the instant the window opens. Sometimes the window will open, but if I scroll down or navigate in the window, the program will crash. The same happens if I do the same thing in IrfanView. Or if I click on the "Attach" button in an Outlook Express e-mail to attach a file. As soon as it opens the window for me to choose my attachment, the program kills itself.

I can drag-and-drop files into the programs; it's not like they're incapable of opening files. So far I can't find a single other program that behaves that way; I can use the File -> Open command with no problem. Windows Explorer also functions fine.

Thing is, I don't even remember the last time I've even used Paint or IrfanView or the last time I sent an attachment in Outlook Express. Okay, maybe the last time was March 27. So I could have it had for a while without noticing. Unless it hopped in on one of the recent Windows Updates.

Do these symptoms make any sense? Sound familiar? I don't really know what to do.

ETA: Uh, motherfucking hell, it's definitely a recent development because I just tried to open a file from My Recent Documents (which I have done a lot recently), and Explorer.exe crashed with this error:

The instruction at "0x77ea01ba" referenced memory at "0x06080007". The memory could not be "read".

Shit shit shit shit. My last weird virus turned out to be a file called aax25F4.tmp.exe and AVG identified it as as a "Trojan horse Generic13.LNA," but that had different symptoms. And it found another Trojan horse and deleted it a week later. And one a week or two ago. But it finds nothing now! It just got an update, so maybe this thing is REALLY new or something. If the new scan doesn't find it...I don't know what to do!!

I recommend Malwarebytes, P-C.

So I think I have a virus, but neither AVG nor Malwarebytes find anything fishy with my system.

what happens when I need to log in to an FTP/SFTP location?

Well, I have the username and password saved in my keychain, so it just opens. If you don't want to do that, it will happily give you a username/password dialog box if it needs to.

I don't use the ability very often, as I find CyberDuck to be more stable. If I needed to edit files on an FTP server, I would probably use the CyberDuck/Smultron option with Smultron as the external editor. I do use disc mounting for Samba connections pretty regularly though.

Lavasoft Ad-Aware also found nothing. Gah. I'm going to see if Spybot will actually install, but otherwise, I'm out of ideas.

Try reinstalling one of the more minor programs you're having a problem with? I'm wondering if your problem isn't a damaged common DLL that a number of programs share for duties like opening files, rather than a malicious virus. This is why reinstalling the operating system in Windows often is the simplest and best cure for a lot of problems.

Dust off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Dust off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

(ducks and covers for not being helpful)