Avoiding viruses

The Word and Excel macro viruses are only activated when you actually open an infected document.  They are most commonly contracted either by accepting and opening an infected document you've received from someone else (from a floppy disk or from an email), or by opening a Word or Excel document over the Internet.

These are particularly powerful and destructive viruses and range in effect from deleting parts of your document or data (in one case, words are deleted at random whilst you are actually viewing it on screen) to totally destroying the contents of your hard drive.

Never open a document you have not written yourself without first saving it to disk as a file and then scanning the disk.  When you are surfing the Web and you click on a link that leads to a Word or Excel document, you will know because both Internet Explorer and Netscape offer you the opportunity to save it to disk. 

Always accept the option to save to disk, and then scan the disk before you open the document.

If you ever have trouble saving your work, or if you think you have a disk with a virus and have trouble disinfecting it, please go to a Help Desk.