.XYZ extension, how do I change it?

Question

I was working on my PC yesterday morning when some virus popped up and I got rid of it but now all my movie files, pictures and documents have the extension .xyz at the end of them. How can I open them so I can watch my videos, view my pictures and work on my documents?

Answer 1

You should be able to just change the filename to whatever extension you need. Windows will confirm that you're changing the extension, but unless the file was corrupted or changed beyond the extension it should work fine.

Answer 2

might be a ransomware virus with encryption. There are some out there which can't be broken (encrypted by AES256) and you'll need to pay to get files back. could be 50 - 100.

Try to Drag & Drop the file into Word or Video Player

You can't change the extension because of either:

• the virus is still active and changing it back each time you change it.

• you don't have File Name Extension checked and the xyz extension is registered by the virus and so is hidden as it's known.

If your files are just renamed, you can bulk rename files using Total Commander.
If someone in similar situation would need to bulk rename hundreds of files, trid - in windows similar to 'file' commandis a way to automatically distinguish file types.