Not AVG. Go with Avira
jholland1964 650 Posting Expert Team Colleague Featured Poster
bossy marmalade 0 Junior Poster in Training
never mind it updated. and i would like to thank you guys for all your help yeah i had to format my drive but i learned a lot of stuff do's and donts and the like (never really used most of the stuff anyway) your time and effort has truly been invaluable and i cant thank you guys enough for helping bring this dark saga to a close (knock on wood!) so once again thanks judy and phan
jholland1964 650 Posting Expert Team Colleague Featured Poster
We did what we could, sorry it ended in a format but as you say, a learning experience...next time don't wait so long. Hopefully though there won't be a next time!
Judy
PhilliePhan 171 Central Scrutinizer Team Colleague
Hopefully though there won't be a next time!
^^^What she said!!
Actually, though, in your case I think a reformat was the right way to go - I was just a bit leery of the homemade XP CD.
Glad it all worked out OK :)
PP
igghff 0 Newbie Poster
Sorry to hear you had to format. I recently got myself into a similar situation and was looking online for a solution when I came across this forum. My problem was just as bad, meaning I couldn't use the internet from IE, could not update my anti-malware programs, could not even open my task manager. I also couldn't run any other programs besides firefox, as they were being blocked. Seems the malware set up some sort of firewall, and from what i understood from the error messages, my own windows firewall against me. I wasn't 'safe' even in safe mode. Random websites kept popping up every 10 seconds or so, as well as all these anti-virus "your system isn't safe" ads right on my desktop. Basically, my computer was barely operable. After reading this forum, I thought I was surely fucked and would have to reformat. Even then!!, as I've read on other forums, a reformat might not help as some viruses seem to latch on and survive. Alas! when i kept rebooting my computer, I noticed the symptoms of the malware appeared only towards the end of the system load. This meant I could open up task manager upon seeing the welcome screen. You just have to look out for suspicious processes that were never there before or named something stupid such as 'skypenames.exe' (in my case). I ended all the processes I could as quickly as possible that weren't essential in the running of windows, which included some of these new processes i didn't know. I closed this "skypenames" several times, as it kept coming back. Even though it kept coming back, I was able to run windows without any symptoms. I was able to update my anti-malware programs (SUPERAntiSpyware & Malwarebytes') and run them in safe mode BEFORE I made sure to disable system restore. Even in safe mode I had to close some processes for everything to go smoothly, including the scans. Turns out the malware was "Rogue." Not every problem (virus) like mine can have such a simple solution, I realize, but this option has not been explored in your case, and should be explored in every malware case. Hope this helps somebody in the future. Thanks.
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