[Alsastar]

Yesterday, I downloaded an MS Word file that was password-protected. The
download went fine, without any warnings or alerts from my firewall of any
sort. I opened the file with the password that had been communicated to me by
other means, and it opened on the instant.

But in that same instant, some score of MS Word files and/or directories
that I had open or had recently been working with suddenly and inexplicably
disappeared. The folders are now empty, the files are nowhere to be found,
and my backup system has failed to restore them, I know not why.

Moreover, two truly weird things started happening immediately thereafter:
MS Word will not save any file whatsoever now with a .doc extender, although
it will save the same file with/as .rtf, and all the zip files that were in
those directories that were otherwise unaffected now demand a password, when
I know for a fact, because I had used them earlier, they were not
password-protected.

Finally, a flash drive that my other computers read with no problems, the MS
Word files included, is "Folder Empty" every time I try to open files with MS
Word on my main computer.

I would deeply be grateful for any help.