does a virus still dangerous after changing extension?

[bollity]

if there is a malware with exe extension and i changed it to avi for example it now opens with media player but sure it shows nothing, does it do any damage if i try to open it?

[BrendanK.]

Well if you want to change a virus' extension I recommend changing it to *.infected that way you can't execute it. However, as far as I know changing it from *.exe to *.avi won't infect you as it needs to be executed as an *.exe. But if the *.exe was bound into the *.avi file you can be infected.

[cqpreson]

As far as I know,It won't infect your computer.I know someone used to changed virus' extension to separate them.

[Cudni]

Originally Posted by bollity

if there is a malware with exe extension and i changed it to avi for example it now opens with media player but sure it shows nothing, does it do any damage if i try to open it?

If you changed .exe to an .avi media player would not open it at all

[kwismer]

Originally Posted by bollity

if there is a malware with exe extension and i changed it to avi for example it now opens with media player but sure it shows nothing, does it do any damage if i try to open it?

it depends on what you change the extension to.

if you change it to something for which there is no registered viewer (.ZZQ perhaps) then there would be no problem.

if you change it to something for which there is a registered viewer but the viewer doesn't try to autodetect what to do with the file based on it's contents (for example, changing it to .JPG where mspaint is your registered .JPG viewer) then there still shouldn't be a problem.

if you change it to something for which there is a registered viewer and that viewer does try to autodetect the correct way to handle the file based on the contents of the file then it might still be dangerous (because the viewer might decide the file needs to be executed).

probably it's safest to choose an extension for which there is no registered viewer.