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Jegajothy vythilingamFlag for United States of America

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Is this a virus

I have a Gateway laptop Model 7322GZ, and the OS is windows XP Prof.  Every time or often, I get a screen titled "Auto Play", and with a torch as though scanning my entire laptop.  I cannot understand what it is and what it is doing.  Can someone please  let me know what is happening.  Thank u
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sjklein42
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Please provide more information as to when this is happening.  
Example:  Every time I turn my computer on.
Generally "Auto Play" is associated with a CD or DVD being inserted into your CD/DVD Drive.

Although, I am uncertain whether or not this is a virus or malware, you can run virus/malware scanning software to see if you have any infections.

To check for Virus', update your anti-virus software and perform a full scan.
If you don't have one, I would suggest Avast Anti-Virus Free version
http://www.avast.com/index

To check for Malware, I would suggest downloading MalwareBytes Free version
www.malwarebytes.com

@tkidwell447, your comment is contradictory with your statement when you say avira is a virus removal tool and malwarebytes is a malware removal tool. I am not bashing you just helpfully pointing out the flaw in this. Both are malware removal tool's as Virus's are known as malware as well as trojan's, worms, adware, etc.  You shall learn something today =). Your solution is well sound.

@jegajothy, I would suggest you follow up with what tkidwell447 suggested and if you dont find any positive results for malware. I would still disable auto-run as it is very known process for malware to spread its infection. You can use this update to disable the autorun.inf file from running when a external drive is inserted and just manually open or run a file on the that external drive.

Disable Autorun for WinXP (KB967715)
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ASKER

To everyone who answered, I want to inform that the autoplay is triggered even when nothing is inserted, like a usb thumb drive or a CD, it just triggers on its own whims and fancies when it wants to and how it wants to.
Maybe this will show something:

The Microsoft AutoPlay Repair Wizard scans your computer devices to find defective AutoPlay settings, and attempts to fix those it finds.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=C680A7B6-E8FA-45C4-A171-1B389CFACDAD&displaylang=en
this did it, thank u