Reverse Caps Lock, Clicking Links Open New Windows - And Other Shenanigans... Virus?
Last night, I experienced a strange series of occurences on my computer (Windows XP/Compaq Presario) that had inadvertently ended - and I am not sure if it will resume - or perhaps even turn into something worse.
I think I might have picked it up while doing research on some websites for proposition bets for the upcoming Super Bowl. I noticed when I was typing, that I was doing so in all caps - even though my Caps Lock was disabled.
When I enabled Caps Lock, it then started typing all lower case letters.
Other keyboard symptoms: the period and the comma were not available, only able to type > or < with or without the Shift key. Also, the Shift key didn't work with most keys for characters. There were also issues in selecting text in a field.
Another nuisance during this period is that when I clicked on a link, it would open up a new browser window, as opposed to the link opening in the same window. I thought this problem was exclusive to Firefox (the browser I was using at the time this all started) but I also opened up Internet Explorer and found out that this was happening there, too.
Frustrated, I restarted the computer. I made sure no keys were stuck. When I rebooted, it appeared I was still experiencing these weird symptoms. I had double clicked on an icon on my desktop, it had selected more than one icon and opened the first one to the right.
I immediately ran Spybot. Surprisingly, during the run, it appeared that thes symptoms spontaneously discontinued, because as I was struggling in writing an email, I discovered that my period worked, and the letters were typing normally, and so forth. Although one scary development prior to that was there were a few keys that had randomly typed as a capital letter while I was in "lower case mode"! I wonder if my computer is possessed!
Good news, for now, is that a Spybot search found nothing major, and an Anti-Malware scan turned up empty.
However, I heard from someone who was on the receiving end of the above message I was writing. He informed me that he was experiencing the same series of odd events, two days in a row, and the third day, all hell broke loose.
I guess my question is, what should I do if I find myself typing the wrong characters again today?
And has anyone else experienced this problem? The more people know about this, the better!
Last night, I experienced a strange series of occurences on my computer (Windows XP/Compaq Presario) that had inadvertently ended - and I am not sure if it will resume - or perhaps even turn into something worse.
I think I might have picked it up while doing research on some websites for proposition bets for the upcoming Super Bowl. I noticed when I was typing, that I was doing so in all caps - even though my Caps Lock was disabled.
When I enabled Caps Lock, it then started typing all lower case letters.
Other keyboard symptoms: the period and the comma were not available, only able to type > or < with or without the Shift key. Also, the Shift key didn't work with most keys for characters. There were also issues in selecting text in a field.
Another nuisance during this period is that when I clicked on a link, it would open up a new browser window, as opposed to the link opening in the same window. I thought this problem was exclusive to Firefox (the browser I was using at the time this all started) but I also opened up Internet Explorer and found out that this was happening there, too.
Frustrated, I restarted the computer. I made sure no keys were stuck. When I rebooted, it appeared I was still experiencing these weird symptoms. I had double clicked on an icon on my desktop, it had selected more than one icon and opened the first one to the right.
I immediately ran Spybot. Surprisingly, during the run, it appeared that thes symptoms spontaneously discontinued, because as I was struggling in writing an email, I discovered that my period worked, and the letters were typing normally, and so forth. Although one scary development prior to that was there were a few keys that had randomly typed as a capital letter while I was in "lower case mode"! I wonder if my computer is possessed!
Good news, for now, is that a Spybot search found nothing major, and an Anti-Malware scan turned up empty.
However, I heard from someone who was on the receiving end of the above message I was writing. He informed me that he was experiencing the same series of odd events, two days in a row, and the third day, all hell broke loose.
I guess my question is, what should I do if I find myself typing the wrong characters again today?
And has anyone else experienced this problem? The more people know about this, the better!