Friend e-mails viruses

[Tigerlily.]

It's not actually her, and whatever or whoever it is erases it from the sent e-mails, but I have gotten 3 e-mail viruses from her (didn't open them because I know better than that.) 2 today and 1 like a month or more ago. When I got the one a month ago (It said hey as subject and so I did open that one) it asked me to download a software and that's when I knew it was a virus (also googled to be sure but yes it was a virus). I e-mailed her and she said she didn't send it and it didn't say she did in her sent, but I tried to stress to her that it was sent and she needed to get her computer and e-mail looked at, maybe change a password or something, but to do something about it. Well today I got two which obviously aren't trustworthy from her (random numbers and letters as subject so I'm assuming but it happened before so I think it's a fair assumption). I just e-mailed her again about it, but my point is when I got the first she refused to get her computer checked, and it's quite obvious that whatever it was is back at it and I fear that soon it will encode an e-mail where you don't even have to open it but just your e-mail receiving it is enough for it to take the virus. I do not by any definition have much money, the only reason I got a lap top is mom got lucky at the casino once, but if I got a virus I couldn't afford for it to be cleaned or to have to get a new one (I have a firewall but I still worry). So my main question is:

What do I do about recieving e-mails from a friend containing viruses and how to go about handling this if they won't?

[FlyingTrue]

It sounds like that either, her email account was compromised at some point and now there are bots "spoofing" or sending emails marked as if they are from her email address even though they aren't, or there is a current infection sending these emails and then quickly deleting them from the sent messages.

Do you have any antivirus software on your computer? If not I would recommend the free Microsoft Security Essentials from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/secur...s/default.aspx

In terms of computer security, having virus protection is one of the most important things you can do to keep your system safe. I also recommend going to Start, All Programs, Windows Update to install the latest updates for your machine, many of which pertain to security.

And of course without a doubt your friend should change her password, and also run a virus scan on her computer as well.