City Hall Computers Get Doctoring : Lancaster: An electronic virus began in November, finally causing systemwide crashes this week, including during municipal elections.

The computer doctors were hard at work at Lancaster City Hall on Friday, curing a “virus” that afflicted two-thirds of the city government’s computers this week.

About 100 of the 150 personal computers used by city employees have experienced temporary shutdowns, slow functioning and other problems since the virus--a destructive program--somehow entered one of the three City Hall computer systems late last year, officials said.

But the problem was resolved Friday morning, said Nancy Walker, city spokeswoman. The system was shut down briefly and a computer program was introduced that has eliminated the problem and “inoculated” the system against future viruses, she said.

Computer viruses are programs written by pranksters or vandals that are designed to disrupt the functioning of other computer programs, and that, like their namesakes, can enter the system undetected and multiply.

Computer experts have been unable to pinpoint the exact origin of the virus, which may have entered the system through a telephone hookup from an outside system or through an outside program brought by an employee from home, Walker said. Officials described the phenomenon as more of a nuisance than a crisis.

“We haven’t lost any information,” Walker said. “It has just been the strain on individual employees facing the frustration of having strange things happening on a day-to day basis at their terminals.”

A few computers began having problems as early as last November, Walker said, with screens “freezing,” programs stalling and printouts being interrupted.

The malady spread gradually, finally causing several systemwide crashes this week, including two particularly inopportune half-hour shutdowns during municipal elections Tuesday.

City computer experts purged some personal computers this week. On Friday, the bulk of the remaining terminals were shut down so that the anti-viral program could be introduced, a procedure that took about 15 minutes, Walker said.