Alanis Morrisette brings up 5 million hits on Google, one pretty famous Canadian it seems. Not sure of your music taste but you might consider having a listen before dumping this stuff.

Try right clicking on a folder then click Properties. Go through the tabs/options to see if there is something there stopping you from deleting.

Anyone else in the home have access to your computer?

Is this a fairly new computer? Some come through with samples of music, pictures, videos, etc. I had these on my HP (including Alanis Morrisette), but I was able to delete them. I haven't checked to see if I have such on my newer Windows 7 laptop. I will check and see if I can delete them if I find such.

Please don't worry that someone is downloading things to your computer. I feel very sure these were there when you bought it.

if you ever had or used any type of peer to peer program like limewire for example then you could well have had your computer open for others to have access to your folders and they could have put files there and also copied files from your pc.
Hacking Limewire
that youtube video by a news station shows how easy it is to do.

Thank you all.

The computer is about 4 years old, I think. I have looked around in the music and pictures folders before, and while on occasion, there have been some "sample" pictures that were not "mine," all this new music was not there the last time I looked, which may have been several months ago. It is definitely stuff that was not there when I bought the computer (a Dell Dimension).

The only people in the house are my husband and I, and he has his own computer and never uses mine. No visitors who could get at it, and no children or grandchildren.

I have never used any peer to peer programs, either. I am beginning to wonder if one of those Microsoft Updates did this to me, seeing that the videos and music open in Windows Media Player.

Owbist, I may listen before dumping some of it, but whether or not the music turns out to be something I like, I resent whoever it is having been able to do this to me. It is also extremely disconcerting to find that your computer, which you are careful to protect and keep "clean," has new files in it like this.

biwako-
However that got downloaded, it wasn't through MS updates. The fact that they open in Windows Media Player only means that they are files that can be played in that player...like many music and video files.

I also don't think it is the result of a virus.

The only things I can think of are that: 1) someone got access to your computer when they were visiting your house and you're not aware of it, or 2) you downloaded/installed software and these files came along with it.

I can't tell you how it got there, but this kind of stuff does not happen for no reason.

Unless I missed it, did you right click on any of the questionable files and select Properties from the appearing drop down menu? In doing so you will be able to determine when the file was created. There will also be a Details tab which may provide you clues as to the origin of the file.

DA

before you start opening these files that you know nothing about I would definitely scan the individual files or the entire folder with the antivirus and malwarebytes, many times those kinds of files are infected. Right click on the folder and select scan with use your AV and malwarebytes.
NO they definitely did not come from a windows update. Those kind of files are by default opened with windows player.

I would be checking in the accounts area of your pc and make sure you are not seeing any other accounts listed as active besides yours and I would also go into control panel administrative tools and open the event viewer and check under security for logon activity that is not you or looks suspicious.

You might also try running RuBotted to see if someone has botted your pc.
RUBotted

has this pc ever been in a shop for repair? if so someone there could have done it.
Do as mentioned and check the properties for the dates see if they are all from the same date

As long as you do not select Open on the drop down menu you will not be opening the file. The Properties report is Windows generated.

DA

Sorry, I've been away a bit. To take your comments in order,

Kudzu: Well, I'm glad to know it isn't something MS is doing, but there is really no way someone could have gotten access to my computer, unless they came in as a burglar and left no other signs. We have very few guests, and the layout of the house makes it impossible for anyone to enter the computer room without our knowing it. I'm beginning to lean more and more to your second suggestion, that the files came along with something else I downloaded. I did download a video on YouTube a few days ago, and now a search on the site doesn't bring it up anymore, which is strange.

DA: I did click to see when some of the files were created. Several were from 2005 and 2006. Do those dates refer to the time they were "created" on my computer (though I do not think I had bought this computer yet in 2005--too lazy to go hunting for the receipt tonight), or to their original creation on someone else's? If it is when they got onto my computer and I just hadn't checked the All Users folder for such things, I am still left with the puzzle of why some got into my personal regular music folder. However, I usually access My Music through the Start menu, but I had gone through My PC>C:\, etc., when I came across this problem. Can it be that the files were there all along, as Gndms suggested, and I just never happened to notice them? (In that case, I will owe everyone an apology for taking your time, and also feel like the boy who cried wolf--though unintentionally!) So long as nothing sinister is going on, I will be content.

RavenCajun: I ran scans as you suggested and all seems well there. However, yesterday I checked the History section of MSE and found this:
{{gwi:1485173}}

But it wouldn't have anything to do with the strange files, would it? I am wondering how it "exploits" the computer and whether or not it did any exploiting of mine before it was detected and removed. This is the first time MSE has found anything "severe." Up till now, it has always been just cookies.
Didn't find any suspicious log-on activity.
RUBotted found nothing, too, but thanks for telling me about it; I have Bookmarked the site for future reference.

When I checked the administrative tools and event viewer, there was a great long list of events listed as warnings, dating back to April of 2006, which I am assuming was when I bought the PC.
{{gwi:1485175}}
All those "warnings" are scary. Can you tell me what they mean? Should I be doing something about them?

Thank you all so much for helping me. Just as a final touch for my peace of mind, I am going to run Kaspersky's scan now.

IntelQRTD = Quick Resume Technology Driver

It seems to be a useless farce introduced by Intel. It simply turns off your screen and mutes the sound but does not put your computer into sleep mode.

On one forum the poster suggested he/she went to Intel and updated the drivers which fixed the issue but going to Intel now seems to produce no results doing a search. Seems to be something to ignore. Your April 2006 may even be before you bought your computer according to some comments.

Biwako wrote In that case, I will owe everyone an apology for taking your time, and also feel like the boy who cried wolf--though unintentionally!

Do not ever feel the need to apologise for asking things like this. Asking is learning and there are no stupid questions.

Thank you, Owbist. I have learned a lot from this forum and from my own mistakes.

when you view the logs in event viewer if you select any individual item and then double click it you will be presented an info box for that warning which will give you much more info, from that you can get an event id and some codes those you can then look up on google and usually find some good info on them.

my guess now is that they probably did come on the pc as samples, I know mine all have some in folders that came with the pc.

ON that java exploit it seems you need to update your java and make sure you go to control panel, add remove, and remove all the old versions which are the ones that will allow those type of exploits. You can also use a great little program called javara which will clean out all the old stuff for you.
Go to your control panel and double click on the java icon then go to updates and let it get the latest version.
Here are links for JavaRa and also the secunia tool to run and check for other things that need to be updated, be sure you do those because many will allow access to exploits if not updated.
JavaRA 1.15
Secunia Online Software Inspector