all characters in the file turn to a 'ÿ' character

[don winiecki]

In MS-Word 2002, XP Professional

At several times over the past six months, I've
experienced a corruption of files in which all characters
in the file turn to a 'ÿ' character.

Attempting to recover text returns an empty file.

How can I fix and avoid this?

[Klaus Linke]

Hi Don,

Usually, it's not really ÿ but the character ^0, that displays as ÿ.
Which means that there isn't anything to recover :-(

It might be the work of a virus... at least that's what I would check first.

Sorry for the bad news!
Klaus

Post by don winiecki
In MS-Word 2002, XP Professional
At several times over the past six months, I've
experienced a corruption of files in which all characters
in the file turn to a 'ÿ' character.
Attempting to recover text returns an empty file.
How can I fix and avoid this?

[don winiecki]

Thanks for the idea Klaus,

Several questions and comments:

First, I've been running Norton Antivirus on this computer
since it was purchased (and have kept it current).

Second, thinking it's a virus, wouldn't it affect all
files rather than a few here and there? Is this
recognisable as virus behaviour?

Third, how would the two-character combination ^0 display
as a single character ÿ?

Fourth, would updating to Word 2003, with its automatic
virus checking behaviour, prevent reoccurrences of this
(or perhaps switching to a totally different wordprocessor
that doesn't run the MS-Word macros)?

_don

-----Original Message-----
Hi Don,
Usually, it's not really ÿ but the character ^0, that

displays as ÿ.

Which means that there isn't anything to recover :-(
It might be the work of a virus... at least that's what I

would check first.

Sorry for the bad news!
Klaus

Post by don winiecki
In MS-Word 2002, XP Professional
At several times over the past six months, I've
experienced a corruption of files in which all

characters

Post by don winiecki
in the file turn to a 'ÿ' character.
Attempting to recover text returns an empty file.
How can I fix and avoid this?

.