I've had those from time to time. I researched it and it is some type of temporary file. I just delete them.

The tilade character (~) is usually attached to temporary files.  When in doubt, delete and reboot.  If you have a problem, you can always restore it from the recycle bin.

The fact that this little bugger is showing up on your desktop makes me suspicious, though.  I would download AdAware or SpyBot and scan your machine, just in case.

I also have this file on my desktop.  I'm going to run either AdAware or SpyBot just to be sure I haven't picked up some spyware.

Thanks all for the suggestions. I have adaware, and ran a scan. Adaware didn't seem to think it was tracking-related, so I deleted the files. I'll do that in the future; I just like to know why stuff happens...

Do they ever use Outlook Express or something like that?

OE has a bug where it files a file named ~ on the C drive

Hi,

I am  just wondering how many people that have this on there desktop are using att cable modem?? I am using that and since they told me to download something because att is changing to Comcast at the end of the month...They also stated that we will need to re-boot our computers after June 30th... This makes me wonder if it has something to do with that....I have the same thing, when I delete it, it stays away for a few days and then comes back...John

I'll give it a shot next time the critter shows up.

Thanks.

I have dial up ( the cable people and dsl folks don't come out this far in the sticks yet.) and I get that file also. It seems to show up on my desktop when my wife opens an attachment, by way of outlook express, from one of her friends. She tried to opewn it once before I could stop her and there was some sort of message saying that windows couldn't open it. Now I make sure she scans and deletes any hincky attachments.

dimension4400,1.6ghz p4,384ddr sdram,20gb primary hd, 60 gb slave(both wd) ,radeon 7500 64 mb ddr video,sb live 5.1 digital audio, 4 port firewire, 4 port usb,hp930c, hp 5400c, sony trv 330 digital camcorder, intel pro pac webcam ,dell E151FP lcd monitor, 24x nec cdrw, 48x samsung cdrom.

1st system
IBM 760el Thinkpad
Selectadock docking station w/4x cdrom
4x cdrom
external floppy
48mb dimm ram
1.1gb hd
U.S. robotics 56k external modem
Iomega Click 40mb hd
4 pcmia slots (2 thinkpad,2 docking station)

You could try Renaming file to say test.txt right click & select "Open with Notepad" & see if it shows any info referring to OE.

DELL 2600 Notebook
Windows XP Home Edition
CPU 1.2Ghz XP SP1
256 KB Ram 18 GB Hard Drive
Dial-up Modem 56Kb

There is another thread on this same topic here. I didn't read the whole thread so I don't know if there was a solution discovered or not.

The April 2003 Cumulative Patch for Outlook Express ( Q330994 ) was also causing this to happen. The patch wasn't updating the backup user.wab. Instead the backup file user.wa~ was created on the desktop ( instead of the address book folder). Do you see anything in the file that looks like address book info?

The only way I think that it can be rectified is by removing the the Q330994 patch in Add/Remove Programs.

 

Pamela

 

 

I read the other threads linked from the posts on this one. As someone suggested I renamed one of our ~ files and yes it is related to the addressbook. (That was a cool tip; I didn't know you could do that to check out a file! I learn something every time I check this forum!!) 

It's funny but we have four users, and only two of our users get these files. Someone else on the thread said they had two users, but only one got the file....

We have the OE update Q330994 installed. 

I have this file and so does my father in law.  It can't be from ATI cause he has a NVidia card.  This file seems to appear about once a month.  I don't have kazaa, but have used WinMX from time to time.  Only music files though.  I've tried searches and come up with no results.  My computer seems to be running fine though.  I do throw it in the trash when it appears and have had no problems.  I still would like to know what this is and why it's doing it.  By the way I did a clean install on his system and the file appeared on his system that night.  Made me think it might be from a Windows Update.  Anyone gets the answer to this please post.  Thanks.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22%7E+file%22+appears+on+desktop&sa=N&tab=wg

 

Thanks for the answer.  I don't need a copy of that so I hope they fix the problem soon.  I wonder if Microsoft knows about the problem.  I was all sweating on finding the problem.  Should've known I'd find the answer in here.  Wonderful thing this fourm!!