How do I get rid of this malware? ?

November 11, 2009

I don’t know how it happened; one day I got home from work and signed in to a bunch of pages of advertisement being displayed. I tried using Avast, Search and Destroy and 1 Click Maintenance to no avail. Search and Destroy actually deleted something important to the registry and my icons and start button and bar wouldn’t display anymore. I had to load it up in safemode and undo everything it cleaned up, which fixed that problem but the malware still remains.

One thing I did notice is that normally my windows updates are automatic and now it is turned off and I can’t turn it back on again. Another thing is that these are all trial versions of the anti-virus and malware detection/elimination software. I’m at a loss though, usually I can get this cleaned up in a jiffy but this one seems to be serious. System Restore doesn’t have a mark to where I can restore it to an earlier time either.

Any ideas?
I would just wipe it clean but of course I can’t find my XP disk at all.

How do you keep from getting malware RIGHT after reinstalling Windows clean? I’ve tried these programs, …..|?

November 9, 2009

but STILL get malware that they can’t find and clear, or/and which ruin my registry after removing stuff: Prevx 3, the one from Malwarebytes, Ad-Aware, STOPzilla!, AVG, SpySweeper, SuperAntiSpyware, and Norton Antivirus. So what antimalwares are there that are better than these?

Will you come back and see if I have any follow-ups for your answers, please?

Thanks, if so,
Mike
I keep getting browser hijacking, 1A, 1B, 1C.tmp, etc., and random sound ads, and my programs cannot kill these! But besides that, why can I get them so SOON right after a clean reinstall of Windows (you know, that wipes the old windows folder with a new one, and quits using the old settings folders in Documents and Settings, which I then erase. So if I can’t yet format my hard disk (because not all my data is archived yet), then this should work as a clean enough reinstallation, should it not?

So there are those 2 things: How do I keep those things from reattacking me right after the new, clean install, and which program is best at it?
Oh, and XoftSpy is one I’ve tried already, too.

And yes, I do run the Windows Firewall as the immediate defense right after reinstall, but see, it doesn’t work that well.
JS-Computing.com, apparently you didn’t read my question very well, because I just barely said that I already tried SUPERAntiSpyware.
Yes, MB, I AM doing a clean install–but not a reformat (I don’t have the space to move my files temporarily, and I haven’t archived the stuff yet). Those are 2 different things. "Clean reinstall" doesn’t mean you have to reformat. That just means you’ve chosen to have a new copy wipe over the old folder, rather than doing what some people call an "upgrade install" (even if it’s not an upgrade) or an "in-place install" or a "repair reinstall" (which repairs hardly anything).

So no, I did not reformat my drive, but even though malware can be hooked with just about any file, they’re only active if they’re in the Windows or Documents and Settings folders, right, because while they can be attached to a lot of things, they can only run with DLLs or as .exe files, right?
Okay, MB, I still think that clean reinstallations and cleaning the drive are separate things (otherwise, what can ya call the kind of Windows installation that’s fresh even without reformatting, instead of just an "upgrade"–just a "fresh reinstall" but not a "clean reinstall"?), but your answer still sounds like a pretty good one. Thank you. I’ve been trying to finish archiving this hard disk to DVDs for some time now. I’ll try to find the funds to buy a 4th fixed hard disk (my current 2 others besides this C: are too full, too) so that I might be able to do it faster. Or maybe I’ll buy a Blu-ray burner and discs. The Blu-rays would be faster than the regular DVDs, obviously, but the 4th hard disk would be faster than the Blu-ray, even.

And thanks, France and the others, too.
JS, I’d like to apologize for giving you a thumbs-down just because you suggested SUPERAntiSpyware even though I had already said that I tried that before. You did provide some other examples that may be good, and so I’m sorry. I’ll try to find someone to give you a good thumbs-up to work against my bad one.

Have a better day tomorrow,
Mike

free registry cleaners that work?

November 9, 2009

free registry fixes

PC Crashed, blank screen, monitor and video card work…?

November 7, 2009

PC- HP Pavillion a1440n
Memory- 2 G
Monitor- Samsung 19" Syncmaster 932BW
Graphics Card- ATI VisionTek X1300 512 MB
OS- Dual Xp\Vista home Premium ( have been using Vista only since I upgraded, haven’t used XP os in 2 years)

I always keep my pc clean of dust and regulary use Window Washer to keep the system clean.

Sequence of events:

3 months ago… Aquired hijacking virus along with a quarter of the screen size popup ad when surfing and also a virus that replaced every ad banner on every web site with ViMax male enhancement ads.

Tried repeated attempts with Spybot Search and Destroy which always worked for me for this kind of thing for years. It never found anything. Yes I kept it updated.

Tried several other popular freeware similar to spybot with failed attempts. No viruses were ever detected. I knew I had a bada$s virus at this point.

One Microsoft recommended free removal program was from K7 Computing. No luck there either, though I suspected this to be a troublesome program after I removed it from my program files like i did with every other program that didn’t work for me. Every so often afterwards, the K7 icon would show up on my desktop or on my Rocket Dock even after I deleted the icon.

2 Months ago:
I began to use software to clean my registry. It worked for its purpoe but never found or deleted my viruses.

1 month ago:
I began to wake up in the morning and the PC would be shut down even though I didn’t do it and I didn’t have it schedueled to do so. I thought it may have been my 3am automatic updates but quickly didmissed that because there weren’t always updates and it would always restart if there were. Now as time progressed, throughout the next few weeks the computer was hesitant to load up when I hit the power button. When this happened it would power off instantly when I touched the power button unlike normally a have to hold it for a few seconds. After a few attempts it would eventually load up.

The fan began to run louder than ever, so I attributed the non-startups as a result of overheating. I removed the heatsink and fan, dusted it back to new and added new silver thermal compound between the heatsink and Intel processor after cleaning the old stuff off. Now it was quiet as the day i bought the PC. No luck with the normal startups though. I had suspected the virus all along.

I finally found a solution to the virus. It was a program called Malwarebytes. It came recommended in forums and it worked! It found several viruses and trojans and removed them all. PC and internet were all back to normal and I was happy as could be…

The next morning after the fix I awoke to see an unfamiliar desktop which looked like a basic desktop when you first install windows. The recycling bin and two program icons which I don’t remember where the only thing there besides the basic vista background and the task bar…
In the taskbar a little notice popped up. It said I was logged onto a temporary account as my normal administrator account could not be loaded. I had left the PC on in its normal administrator account the night before. I had done nothing.
So I immediately checked to see if my files were still around and they were through Explorer. Turned off the power and figured on backing everything up when I got back from work. I know I’m an idiot for not doing it in the last 3 months.
Anyways, since that morning my PC has never come back on. I can power it up and sometimes I even hear the windows loading sounds through the speakers but not always. I know the pc recognizes devices because if I hear the loading sounds I can press the logoff button on my wireless keyboard and I hear the sound it makes as it logs off. Now it doesn’t always "boot up" but I know when it does because I’ll either A;hear the sounds B; unplug the monitor cable from the pc and the monitor recognizes it has lost signal or C; when I hit the power button I have to hold it as opposed to it shutting off immediately as I have described above.

I have tested the monitor with my laptop and it works fine. I have placed my original video card back in the pc and nothing different. So I’m sure the video card is not the problem. I have tested the two memory sticks individually and in different slots with no results. My most recent test was to Map Network Drives and try to access my pc through the laptop to recover the files. It recognizes my pc but says I’m not logged onto the Administraor account. The problem there is the last time I seen anything it said I was was logged onto temp account of some sort and I don’t know what it is called if anything at all.
No luck with anything.

So if anybody has a solution as to how I can recover my files before I take it to a specialist, please share your wisdom. Would I have better luck trying to connect to the pc directly with a cable? Or if this has happened to anyone else and knows what the actual issue here is, PLEASE tell me.

Sorry for the sup
Sorry for the super long post, but I wanted to be as thorough as possible. I really don’t think I have any more information to give, but if there are any questions, I’ll be checking the post regularly.

Thank You,
Drexyl

Are there any true FREE registry cleaner programs?

November 7, 2009

I am so sick and tired of seeing FREE registry programs. You download the program, it scans the computer and comes up with this outrageous number of alleged errors and then you have to pay to have them fixed. Some actually fix maybe 20 errors, but nothing like they advertise. In fact, I dont know how they can advertise a free program that fixes registry errors, when it truly does not. False advertisements.

So, does anyone know of any TRULY FREE registry programs on the internet.