I know the computer literate among you are probably rather tired of hearing some other computer illiterate noob beg for help after their comp just totally (censored)s up....but help! >.<

My comp seems to be having some sort of problem with a virus of some sort...first indication of this problem was a bit earlier tonight when a Norton AV window popped up telling me that i had some sort of virus, dont remember the name. I tried to open Norton AV but I kept getting an error message saying "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item."

And it says that with any program that I try to open. I can't really follow the instructions that Symantec site gave me cause I can't turn off system restore...I get the same error window when I try to open up the properties of My Computer.

I've used my "absolutely brilliant" deductive skills to figure out that it has more to do with trying to open .exe files than anything else as I was able to open up my mozilla by opening a saved webpage I had.

Can anyone help me? I'd rather not reformat yet again and lose all the files that I've collected since the last time I had to reformat but I guess i'll do it if I have to...

Thanks.