Welcome to Just Ask Matt! - The IT industry’s answer to the help column, only slightly more medicated. Today, Thomas writes:

Help, I am at a loss of what to do here. My computer is running a pretty decent anti-virus. For like a week now, I have been seeing messages showing up in my sent folder that I know that I have not sent, and getting e-mail from people that I have never heard of telling me that I am infected with computer viruses. What I don’t get is how? I run Norton Professional and scan every week. How could this be happening? Could it be my anti-virus is too old? Please help me Matt, I am at my wit’s end.

Thomas, there are two very big possibilities here. The first and foremost is that either your automatic update has been turned off/disabled somehow, or your anti-virus definition subscription has plumb run out. If the anti-virus is just not working with current info, try to do a manual, live update to see if this allows you to get the latest definitions. If this is no good, then assuming you can still access the Internet, you ought to try doing an online anti-virus scan through Trend Micro or Panda software. Just remember, if you know for a fact that your PC is infected and you are running XP, then be sure to turn off system restore for the time being. More often than not, little nasties have been know to make a home here as a restore point is being set, so it is good to make sure that nothing is lurking anywhere. Hope this helps!

Do you have an IT-related question? Perhaps you are just burnt out on writing on the walls with crayons? Whatever the comments may be, drop me a line, and you too can “Just Ask Matt!”