I am having huge issues with my computer - pop ups, slower and slower, just in general icky. now all the sudden I am not able to get onlline. says that I am infected by umpteen vireses and spyware, but will not let me remove them, no will it let me purchase the program that it says I need. something is seriously f'd up here

and I fired my IT guy a few months ago because he ws always to slow in responding to me - or telling me that he would only have my computer overnight and then keeping it a week. I kind of have to have it to run my business.

SO anyone know how to break through this crap - get me back to functionality. I will pay cash to the person who comes over here and fixes my computer - I jsut can not be without it, stupid state tax folk coming in Monday afternoon and I have to be ready when they get here

Oh - and I am at the former book keepers desk useing her computer (no - I can not just swap them, hers wuld never have near enough memory to run everything I have to run)

Recomendations? Volunteers? Anyone?

Dont make me find the

Write down what pop up is coming up and telling you what virus software to buy. What ever you do, don't buy that software, it will probably have spyware, adware and other crap installed into it. If you have the name of the pop up that is showing itself, then we can get you down the road to fixing it.

But to start, you need to start the thing up in safe mode first, then run your virus cleaner from there. It will give you internet access, but will only allow certain things to run. So to do that, reboot your computer, and tap the F8 key and then highlight the "Start in Safe Mode" and go from there. I would also recommend that you use the free version of Avast or AVG virus software because they do more than Norton or MacAfee do for their paid subscriptions. I used to use both and I was always getting crap, I have used Avast for about 3 years now and haven't had a single virus since.

But post up what the pop up is and we can go from there.

I'm not an IT guy, but get along fairly well with computers. I'd be happy to take a look at it. It sounds like something has installed itself on your system that needs to be cleaned out. There are a couple of really good free programs that can do that. Worst case scenario, we wipe your hard drive and reinstall your software after backing up the critical stuff. I'll likely have some time this weekend, but need to touch base with the spousal activities director to see what we have going on.

Ok, the pop up and it comes up whether online or not its: xp internet security 2012

Justin, anytime please just let me know

dan, I reset my email yesterday, I typicality use a web mail junk email when joining sites like this, once trusted I will give my real email.

Yeah, you need to do everything in safe mode. Like I said, go into that by hitting F8 and then get online. Download Malwarebytes and run it, then do the same with Avast.

Malwarebytes - http://www.malwarebytes.org/
Avast - http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download

That virus is a web scam that usually attacks people who use Internet Explorer for their web browser. Another thing you can do once you get rid of the virus is switch to using Firefox or Google Chrome and quit using IE.

Ok, giving it a shot now, thanks

Ok, it will not go into security mode. Trled it several timees both f8 function key and f and 8 keys. Next idea??

Never did get it into safe mode, but did open firefox- used it to download malware and avast. Have no idea if they are up and running. Still getting pop ups from XP security alert so it is not solving the problem, but I am able to use firefox to acces the net.

WIll have to find a new tech guy to clean this pos up....

First things first: disconnect that computer from the internet NOW. Find a second known clean system to work from and a USB thumb drive to transport your new software downloads.

****DO NOT USE THE THUMBDRIVE ON THE CLEAN SYSTEM AFTER YOU HAVE TRANSPORTED DATA TO THE CORRUPT ONE UNTIL YOU HAVE ENSURED THE THUMBDRIVE IS CLEAN AGAIN***

My recommendation is to say screw safe mode. Once disconnected from the internet, the threat of spyware/adware is eliminated. Download and install Zone Alarm's free firewall. Once installed, use the sidebar to go to Program Control and then Programs. Ensure EVERY PROGRAM has settings set to "ASK". This will force every single program on your computer to ask for permission to access not only the system, but the internet as well. Restart the system and take note of any all programs that ask for permissions.

Next, hit control, alt, delete on the computer and select "Task Manager". Inside Task Manager you will see four tabs: Applications, Processes, Performance, and Networking. Select the Processes tab and write down all of those names you see under that list. This is a list of every single process that is currently running on your system.

Go back to your clean computer with internet access and google each process and program name you got from Task Manager and Zone Alarm. Most of these will come back as normal processes required to allow your system and accessories to run. Some of these will likely come back as malware. Once you have identified those that come back as malware, you'll have to run a few more google searches to identify steps to remove the malware.

Once you have rid your system of anything believed to be malicious download and install a GOOD anti-virus software. I use Symantec corporate because it is free to me through work. A lot of people give it a bad rap, but just last week I was able to prevent several brute force attacks against our training computers using a very robust hacker software suite.

Anti-virus isn't really going to help you right now because the malware has likely already gotten in to the registry. Once it has done that, it can bypass any new installations or updates of anti-virus simply by virtue of its access to the registry.

I'd love to come up and give you a hand cleaning this thing out, gratis, but I wouldn't be able to do so until Tuesday at the earliest. If you want to walk through it over the phone I can do that.

As far as safe mode goes, you'll need to hit the 'F8' key prior to the windows splash screen.

As for the popups, download an app called rkill from bleeping computer and run it on the infected machine: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic308364.html
Rkill will terminate whichever process is running that is causing the popups.

Once the popups are killed download and install malwarebytes and launch it. Make sure you are connected up to the internet so malwarebytes can update its database, 6830 is the most current version. On the scanner tab make sure you check the option to perform a full scan. It can take quite a while, a couple of hours potentially. It all depends on how much data you have on your computer.

That should get rid of the XP internet security app. If not I can help walk you through finding the files and removing it manually.

Good luck!

All good suggestions above but, those will will never rid you of the virus/malware that is causing your issue (especially if it's living in the boot-sector of your hard drive). You need to format your hard drive and re-install Windows. If you aren't familiar with the process or don't have the Windows installation CDs, take the computer to a shop and have them do it. Once that's done, install a very good anti-virus application and keep it updated. Your computer will run like it's brand new.

This is why I prefer old cars....


All this techie stuff might as well be Japanese to me. I will give er another shot. Working in firefox now, and I must say - I like it but the pop ups keep happening. not as often and I am able to at least get online unlike explorer.

I have 2 other machines here in the office but they do not have all the software installed that i need for estimating, book keeping etc, only this one has everything.

Going ot print this thread - then give er hell trying to fix this thing today. If that fails, I will be shipping it off to the repair shop.... ouch.

Thanks.

I had a malware infection on my laptop once and I could not open IE or Firefox . Luckily I also had Opera so was able to surf to find what was wrong. Installed MalwareBytes and I could not get it to run because of the infection. I went and changed the folder name the program was in, changed the name of the executable program name and updated the shortcut properties pointing to the newly named program. I was able to boot in safe mode and start this new named program. Did a scan and found and fixed what was ailing my computer. Since then I have several different programs that I would run regularly to seek and destroy those pesky bugs. Better yet I bought a new MacBook Pro laptop and don't worry about it.

Folks,

Huge - I mean HUGE thank you's to all of you who offed help, especially Justin for offering to come down and work on it with me.

I have good news - infection is defeated. Your tips, instructions and suggestions worked. It took almost 5 hours for Malwarbytes to scan the whole computer but now that it has, and has cleaned it, and I have downloaded and am running Avast, seems that everything is back to its previous level of awesome!!!

Thanks again guys, have fun wheelin and wrenchin today - me, I am doing the bookkeeping that I did not get done yesterday due to IT issues.

Good to hear you're up and running again!

I had the same issue last week with my wife's laptop and yesterday I noticed that my laptop is doing the same thing. I feel your pain and frustration. It seems so prolific that Microsoft, McAffee, Norton, etc. would have fixed this thing by now.

Glad to hear you're up and running. You must have had a lot of work for Malware Bytes to do. For kicks I downloaded it and an ran it on my server that is running 24/7. It took it 1/2 and hour to dig through 4 1/2 terabytes of data.

OK - going to prove my ignorance here:

WTF is a Tera byte?

Sounds like something from a bad dinosaur movie...

Or some decent porn...

Yup. It's lots. My guess is that, unless you've got a big ol porn stash on your work machine, its probably 5 or 10 times the amount of data on the average computer. It doubles as a media server and home theater PC so that I can access a big collection of movies, videos, music, etc anywhere I have access to my network.

Sounds like a cool idea - what do you need to buy for a media server? Have a favorite brand? Does it hook up to TV through HDMI? Good Quality Picture? Be so cool for all of the kid's Spongebob's and Disney movies that are always missing, scratched, lost, etc.

All you need is a low power/old/gutless PC, a decent graphics card and a big hard drive. I'd be happy to help you set one up. No one really makes one, but they're easy to build. I put my first one together out of spare parts. Mine is hooked via HDMI to a 46" LCD and Dolby surround down in my rec room/man cave. It'll run Blu-ray picture quality without getting warm. I use Boxee (www.boxee.tv) as my front end. It also streams over my network to a Western Digital device that will play videos on the TV in our bedroom and will stream to any laptop, tablet or phone over wireless. It's pretty slick.

Currently running mine off an old box and Ubuntu Linux. But i'm just using it as a file server and streaming to a PS3. I'm going to build a new system with a RAID setup because i'm paranoid that right after I rip my old DVD's and sell em that one of the drives is going to die lol. Been debating on building a little HTPC to run boxee on. How do you like the interface?

holy smokes - and I thought I was in a dark place when it came to working on the bronco...

You mean my 50" rear projection big screen hooked into the 80's tower rack system is not cool anymore...

crap!

Guess the VCR - DVD player is "out" too.

Nah, just the VCR part. The rest of it is still pretty cool.