Mid-Atl folks,

Ok, so I let my Norton Anti-Virus LAPSE of course cuz I'm too lazy and now the home computer has a "virus or spyware" now. It's acting up. I can't even go to Norton's site and download the anti-virus b/c this bug is starting to show pop-up's or redirecting to some "SHADY/FAKE" anti-virus download. Any suggestions on how to fix the problem. Really not interested in inviting the Geek Squad to the house so that they can A$$ RAPE me with the price to fix it. It's like $399 to take it to them apparently and $199 for them to come to the house or something like that.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

 

try malwarebytes.org

hopefully it allows you to download.

 

Get an Apple

 

Funny that you mention that cause I got a virus similar to that on my work laptop just this past Sunday. Does it pop up the Windows Security thing saying what kind of virus was detected and what it does? Does it suggest downloading some Windows Malware thing?

It would only give me roughly 5 minutes before it would lock up the computer so I didn't have much room to actually do anything. I didn't have enough time to resolve it due to work the next day so I simply formatted it and reinstalled.

 

lakbum - that's EXACTLY what's going on!! how do you format and reinstall. I don't have the damn cd's anymore. can't find them anywhere. everything was preinstalled from DELL when I bought the desktop.......should have got an APPLE...

 

You can usually download the cd's if needed be, I am sure you have the legit OS key on a sticker that is placed on the case. Once you have the OS installed I am sure your computer manufacturer offers all their drivers on their website associated with specific model computer.

 

You just need a root removal tool. Try this link. Usually download the tool, disconnect from the i-net. Run the tool several times and be good with. Then get a free AV such as Avira, no need to spend dollars on Norton or McAfee.

http://www.computing.net/answers/sec...rus/22816.html

 

Berk if that doesn't work I can get hold windows for you, which version were you running?

As far as Anti-Virus software I would bypass any of the free programs and go out and buy ESET NOD3, I've solely used this on my custom desktop and laptop and never had an issue with any virus or spyware.

 

... oh and stop browsing **** ...

 

Spybot http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html

Its free and really good. I've been using it for years now.

 

Buy a Mac. You'll never deal with that again.

 

Well, if everything was preinstalled from Dell...did you get some sort of recovery CD? That usually has the operating system. If you get a version from someone else, the Windows key that you have probably won't work with that version.

If you do have the CD, it is usually a bootable CD which you can put in your drive and on reboot, press F12 (what I used for my Dell laptop) and it'll prompt you if you want to boot from a different source. From there, the CD will give you options of formatting and reinstalling. If you haven't done it before though, you probably should get some help although it is pretty straightforward. Have you kept a backup of your computer? If you haven't, you can probably get someone you know that knows computers to directly connect to your hard drive and copy whatever you need if your unable to do it with your current machine.

I would recommend trying the suggestion about getting the root removal tool. I didn't have a Internet connection long enough to download it when I had the virus so I couldn't go that route. My personal preference though...I would just start over cause I feel like once something is infected, who knows what else was compromised...just my opinion.

Good luck...this kinda of stuff makes me want to go back to a Mac, but this was my work laptop.

 

You're going to spend a couple hundred to get it fixed probably. Dell computers have the MS license key stored in the BIOS. My bet is you won't need do go that far, someone will be able to get to the virus outside of windows. I have a guy who's really good but he lives in Potomac, and you are practically in another time zone.

 

No need for any geeks to touch your box, just get smitRem.exe root removal tool it will remove it. What you have is a desktop hijacker.

SmitRem removes big amount Desktop Hijackers. A few examples: Trojan-Spy.HTML.Smitfraud.c malware infection and it’s variants, AntivirusGold, PSGuard Spyware Remover, SpySheriff, Spy Trooper, SpyAxe, and Security Toolbar. These infections make many unwanted changes to a user’s computer. They are also difficult to remove. The effects of each of the above variants varies, in some cases infecting the system file wininet.dll and/or disabling the Task Manager in addition to taking over the desktop. In the tool included the repair of all of the known registry changes made by these hijackers, as well as the removal of the associated files and folders created.

How to use SmitRem

• Download smitRem.exe from here, saving the file to your desktop.
• Double click it to extract the contents to a folder of it’s own.
• Restart your computer in safe mode.
  * Restart your computer.
  * After hearing your computer beep once during startup, but before the Windows icon appears, press F8.
  * Instead of Windows loading as normal, a menu should appear.
  * Select the first option, to run Windows in Safe Mode.
  
• Open the smitRem folder and double click the RunThis.bat file to start the tool.
• Follow the prompts on screen and allow disk cleanup to complete.
• Upon reboot, you can reset your desktop background.

I don't know if the link above works, it is blocked from work. Just google or go to download.com and download smitRem.exe.

 

berkmeister,

if worst comes to worst you can salvage all your data off your HD quite easily with some tools/software and then reinstall windows. if you dont have windows i have extra copies. i think i can even generate a cd key for you with my microsoft student account thingy at school.

if you need any help let me know.

i helped pej fix his dell.

later gator