> My friend is running Windows 2000 OS in my office. All of a sudden
> Norton Anti-Virus auto-protect feature was turned off ! Then he could
> not see his desktop at all but the wall-paper. Then he rebooted his
> machine but to no avail. Once he logs on to the local network desktop
> comes and disappears.
> When i asked him he told me that only IE 6.0 was running.He also told
> me that not downloaded any attachments prior to that.
> Can anyone will be provide insights into this one ? it will of great
> help.

Having your virus killer switched off sounds suspiciously like a virus
infestation to me though - it`s a common tactic they use. There are
several sites that can do an "online scan" for free - might be useful if
you`re on a decent speed line :-}

Scan it for malware asap - try http://security.kolla.de (Spybot Search &
Destroy) - it`s free - it will track and remove ~8000 trojan and other
assorted nasties.

Use the online update feature (bottom left) - there`s likely to be
"includes" and a newer help file, download the Spybot hosts file (under
tools / hosts), and from the spybot link top left, select immunise, and
then scan... You can fairly safely ignore anything that it doesn`t tick
by default, but you might be surprised at how much it picks up.

IE is very easy for malicious programs to patch (i`ve had it done to me),
and i`m *very* careful - I only use Opera if at all possible for all
browsing.

I`d also recommend a firewall on every single machine on the network so
you know what apps are trying to get out.