Forum Discussion
Harodman
Jan 08, 2025Iron Contributor
A Strange "c" File with No Extension Keeps Appearing After Deletion but Not After Renaming It
Ok, so this is my first post and I hope I'm posting in the right forum. However, I noticed a strange file located in
C:\Users\<my suer name here>\AppData\Roaming as I was creating a start menu shortcut of a portable application. As I was manuevering through the directories, I noticed a strange file called "c" with no extension in the above mentioned directory. Curious, I sandboxed a copy of the file, and opened it with notepad. Once it was opened, a "\" is the only text contained in the file. So, I asked a ChatGPT program that I have installed on my PC that's specifically made for PC troubleshooting and PowerShell scripting, and followed all the recommended actions - such as scan my PC with Malwarebytes, Hitman Pro, etc. etc. My PC comes up clean each time. Following the next step of this ChatGPT advice, I renamed the file to "c.bak" to see if it would create another instance of the file and to see if I would have an appllication misbehave/ fail to load, etc. After waiting a few days as recommended I deleted the c.bak file figuring an application hadn't malfunctioned or anything so I figured it was safe to delete, thinking maybe it was a leftover from another application that I had uninstalled. Immediately after deleting the c.bak file, another instance of the original "c" file suddenly appeared. So, I went ahead and renamed it to "c.disabled" this time. My question is, is that I cannot trace what is creating this "c" file with no extension. I figured if this was caused from an application it would occur immediately right after renaming the file as "c.bak" which it did not - but the moment I delete the file, a new instance of "c" file appears suddenly. How can I trace what application is causing this? And yes, I did look at the properties details tab and it's just blank. Any ideas of what's going on here?
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