Hello everyone. I am new to this forum, and am pretty inept when it comes to computers. Even though I was using Trend Micro PC-cillin, I have gotten an extremely bad virus that I am having zero luck getting rid of. My sister also got the same thing, and the only website we both visited recently is the BBC5 website. I live in the U.S., but she was on a radio show when they were here, for what it matters.
Anyway, this is what has happened so far:
It started with a red circle with a white X in the task bar in the lower right by the clock. It seemed like it was the wrong size, and it kept popping up a message saying "You have been infected with Spyware. Download this patch. . ." I noticed there was a typo and a grammatical error so I was suspicious. I think I may have clicked on it, but the second the website came up I closed it.
While the pop-up was happening, I went to google, only to discover that every site went to an ad for antivirus09 or something to that effect. I noticed in the URL it said go.google. . . All search enginges are hijacked.
I then removed Trend Micro PC and installed Windows Live Onecare. This actually seemed to remove the pop-up issue. But, all search engines are still hijacked, and this virus is so insidious that it won't even allow me to access any pages where I can get help. I'm surprised I can even get on this forum.
Today I purchased Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009, but I can't install it because apparently there is some bit of Windows Defender left, but I can't remove it, nor can I figure out how to do so. I found one link to Microsoft that's supposed to help you remove WD, but, the virus won't let me open the page.
I've tried unsuccessfully to download: hijackthis, Spyhunter, Spybotsd160, and Malawarebytes Anti-Malware. All of those except the hijackthis are on my desktop, but I can't get them to open. From what I've read on this forum and elsewhere, the Malaware thing should do the trick, but I can't get it to open.
And like I mentioned, any websites like bleepingcomputer.com, majorgeek.com, or even the Kaspersky homepage are blocked by this virus.
I really, really need help. I've got six years of programs on this computer, and I would really prefer to not have to reformat. And like I mentioned, I'm pretty inept at computer stuff, so go easy on me! As it is, I've spent several days trying to figure this out on my own, and I'm at my wit's end. I spent at least 7 hours today alone trying to restart, go into safemode, reboot, research, get people to look things up on their computers, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Thank you in advance for any assistance.
