In computer news this week,

Valentines day is coming and so are the viruses ..

Ah, valentines day - the romantic holiday of the year. Millions of people will send emails to their sweethearts, and guess what they'll be saying ? I love you! And millions of people will click on these emails - from people they know - and unfortunately they may then become infected with the lovebug virus. The love bug virus is expected to hit in force this coming Valentine's day, and it is expected to be disguised in different messages. It may come in a message entitled valentine's joke also.

You can ward off the lovebug virus on your windows computer by disabling what is known as windows scripting host, a standard feature that is normally installed during installation.

Depending on what version of windows you have , the procedure to remove this is different. For windows 98 - Click on start - setting - control panel, then click on the add/remove programs icon. Another screen will appear, and at the top of it - in the middle - you will see a tab that says Windows Setup. Click on this tab and select accessories. Click on accessories and see if it shows windows scripting host. And if it does, remove this feature.

On windows 95 you may have the windows scripting host if you have internet explorer 5.0. In windows explorer, right click on My Computer - click open - click view - then click file types. Scroll down in the file types to VBS script file, and remove it if you find it.

Another option is to go to the symantec.com website and download their noscript.exe program. This will allow you to disable or e-enable the scripting program should you ever need it.

There are two huge security holes in windows, and the scripting host is one of them. It allows .vbs - visual basic script files - to run automatically whenever someone clicks on them. So when you click on that attachment in your email that says "I love you" or "Valentine's day joke" - you don't notice that the file has .vbs at the end of it. As soon as you click on it, it automatically runs, and soon you have several hundred files on your computer infected with the love bug virus. Then - even worse - it goes into your email address book and sends emails from your computer to all your friends with the virus in them. You friends, thinking it is a safe email from you, click on the virus email, and the circle repeats itself, as all their friends get infected.

What do you do? First of all disable the windows scripting host. The transcript of this show is on my raw bytes page on mtamicro.com and you can read the details of how to do this, as well as see links to related informational sites.

The next thing - don't click on any email attachments sent to you by anyone - unless you're absolutely certain it is a legitimate file, and you can call them on the phone or email them back without opening the original email attachment.

And the next thing you want to realize is that there are thousands of other viruses out there - completely different from these love bug viruses - that you still need to protect your self from with either an anti virus program or judicious internet procedures.

The other major security hole in windows is the default file sharing, which enables hackers to attach to your computer whenever you connect to the internet. You need to turn off this feature when you're on the internet, or use a firewall program like zonealarm which I reviewed recently.

Have a happy and safe valentines day !

For raw bytes, this is Frank Delaney.