84 When I do a "DIR | MORE", I see two files with random names that are not there when I just use "DIR". On my friends's system they cannot be seen. Do I have a virus?
Description
This article is from the Computer Viruses FAQ, by Nick FitzGerald n.fitzgerald@csc.canterbury.ac.nz with numerous contributions by others.
84 When I do a "DIR | MORE", I see two files with random names that are not there when I just use "DIR". On my friends's system they cannot be seen. Do I have a virus?
No. DOS's default commandline interpreter (COMMAND.COM) creates two
temporary files with unique names for every pipe character ("|") used on
the command line. Starting with DOS version 5.0, these files are
created in the directory pointed to by the TEMP environment variable,
not in the current directory as they were in earlier DOS versions. If
your TEMP setting is invalid or you have an earlier version of DOS you
will see these files in the current directory when you pipe the output
of a DIR command through MORE (or any other filter). If you don't see
these files in the current directory's listing, performing the command
"DIR | MORE" on the directory specified by the TEMP variable will reveal
them.
Generally, you would be better to use "DIR /P" instead of "DIR | MORE",
as this avoids the creation of the temporary files. If you use an
alternative commandline interpreter, none of the above may apply.
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