Whenever I run AVG anti-virus the report shows it was unable to open the following files: C:\HIBERFIL.SYS C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM.LOG C:\Documents and Settings\DEFAULT\NTUSER.DAT C:\Documents and Settings\DEFAULT\ntuser.dat.LOG C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\NTUSER.DAT C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\WINDOWS\UsrClass.dat.LOG Plus many variations of UsrClass.dat and ntuser.dat I believe these files are part of the OS and registry where Windows keeps logs of passwords etc, but what i wanted to know if any viri can hide in such files and is it safe to simply by-pass these files? TIA

You do not need to worry about a virus or trojan infecting these files. They are not executable, they simply hold data. Your anti virus program needs to open a file to scan it, these files will not allow access to be opened. Configure your anti virus scanner to only scan files that can contain viruses and not the ALL files scan to bypass these types of warnings. HIBERFIL.SYS Relates to hibernation settings. turn your hibernation to allow access to the file. Control Panel; Screen Saver; Click on Power and then the Hibernate Tab; Uncheck the 'Hibernation' box and then Reboot. The LOG and DAT files are of no concern at all. Michael

Many thanks Michael.