New Vostro Desktop Infected - no Dell support

The report wasn't clear that AVG was installed on the delivered computer after removing the Norton software. This computer is for business use. Experience has been poor with Norton/Symantec and AVG has performed well. Its best to avoid dueling anti-virus software running.

The curl.exe software was located in C:\SvcTools directory. Guess is that it is for Dell Service Tools.

"A Vostro 420 desktop computer out of the box had AVG Anti-virus Network Edition installed".

Something doesn't sound right here:   DELL typically includes some version of Norton/Symantec, McAfee, or TrendMicro.   I've never heard of them including AVG.   In particular, AVG Network Edition should not have been included on a "home" stand-alone PC.   Do you have your order/invoice, indicating the anti-virus protection (if any) you were supposed to receive with the machine?

A quick net search indicates that curl.exe might be related to Yahoo widgets.   Again, something that I wouldn't expect to find on a machine out of the box.

"AVG was installed on the delivered computer after removing the Norton software".

That being the case --- meaning that you made use of the machine, presumably going online to download the AVG program --- it is possible that  curl.exe  was likewise downloaded/added to your system after the computer was delivered (rather than being pre-installed, as delivered by Dell).   Did you also download any Yahoo Widgets?  

If  curl.exe  is indeed a worm, then AVG has apparently been successful in protecting you from it.   However, if it's the curl-program related to Yahoo widgets, then AVG may have misdiagnosed the situation.

I'm sure this isn't what you want to hear.   Let me point out that this is a user-to-user forum, not a user-to-DELL forum.  Let's see what others may have to say here.

Seems like there are a few possibilities here:

1) AVG has detected a false positive, as alluded to by ky331. If your Vostro is and was working well, and a routine scan detected curl.exe, this is possible.

2) You were infected with malware in the short period you had this Vostro (possibly during the time you changed your AV).

3) Dell gave you an infected PC. Possible, but highly unlikely. Unless you immediately ran an on-demand scan with Norton that also detected curl.exe, it is impossible to prove that your PC was infected out of the box.

In short, I don't think you can prove that Dell gave you an infected PC, so their response about not supporting software issues is reasonable.

More important though, is whether or not your PC is now clean and problem-free. I would suggest that a free online AV scan is in order, and can recommend Eset's NOD32 online scanner:
http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/

Edit: Incidently, the help available from volunteers in these forums has proven so good over the years, I have never had to resort to Dell's support.

To close out this report - a separate message was posted in this forum that AVG confirmed reporting a false positive.

AVG has updated the software definitions and the computer now shows no infection.

Once again, better safe than sorry.