Dizzie, one gets it straight off the web. Other infected PCs, any PC anywhere, goes out and looks for unprotected PCs to hit. If you don't have a firewall or a good antivirus app, you're at risk - every time you get onto the web. It doesn't come via Outlook, the usual path these days, neither does it need for a file to be opened. It uses a security breach in Win2000 that was discovered last month to go straight into your Windows system. Then your PC becomes one of those trying to spread to everyone else.... anyone else. Hundreds of thousands of machines including a helluva lot of servers have been hit all over the world. Whole corporations... Example: X takes his/her laptop home over the weekend. Gets on the web, drops into Rosity etc. While surfing, the PC gets hit. It just behaves a bit oddly, but nothing special. On Manday he/she takes the laptop back to work, connects it to the intranet there and (now inside the company firewall!!!) instantly the virus infects every XP or Win2K PC on the corporate intranet. Boom.... :] Fish