OK, I ignored my own advice and decided to be stupid...

[ssampier]

You can also run a few free online antivirus scanners. I've successfully run them on client machines when the antivirus was acting up.

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

(the older version of the scanner was beter)

http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/ActiveScan.htm

http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx

http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner
(does not automatically remove viruses it finds)

Kaspersky works the best, in my mind, but it's tricker to use since it doesn't automatically remove any viruses.

If you have always on DSL or cable, you should run these scans in Windows safe mode with networking.

 

[BOZ]

Oh yah, chuck that desktop stuff. That's just there to trick you into running it and re-installing the virus or spyware. Glad to hear it's getting better.

yep, so far so good - several hours later, and still no new BS.

so i can kill those icons and nothing bad should happen (like, uhoh, you tried to delete me so i'm erasing your whole hard drive and all your CDs plus all the computers of everyone you know, hahaha)?

 

[XCorvis]

I'm glad it's working. Reinstalling your system because of a virus problem is a huge annoyance.

Most of the time if you try to delete something important Windows will warn you about it. Nothing important ever goes on the desktop unless you put it there.

 

[BOZ]

OK, if you folks figure there's no harm in killing those desktop items, i shall do so.

yep, the latest fix seems to be holding as of this morning! i've had symantec pop-up exactly once since i last ran a fix, and that was for a single instance adware, which has always been a fairly common occurance. a minor annoyance at best, it will pop up 1-2 times per day if at all, so i thought nothing of it.

now, at the height of the infection, symantec was popping a dozens times per hour... that was bad!

no popup internet windows since the fix at all, either. so, unless the thing is lying dormant in wait, looks like i'm all good! thanks fellas.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

yep, the latest fix seems to be holding as of this morning! i've had symantec pop-up exactly once since i last ran a fix, and that was for a single instance adware, which has always been a fairly common occurance. a minor annoyance at best, it will pop up 1-2 times per day if at all, so i thought nothing of it.

Glad to see you fixed the problems. Generally I stopped trying to fix them since I back-up my HDs frequently I just throw in a 7 pass long DoD bootnuke and re-install if the problem is serious or just every couple months as a matter of course.

now, at the height of the infection, symantec was popping a dozens times per hour... that was bad! no popup internet windows since the fix at all, either. so, unless the thing is lying dormant in wait, looks like i'm all good! thanks fellas.

Yep multiple infections are nasty, of course Symatec is also one of the most obnoxious anti-virus software. I usually use Panda platinum and it seems to work better as well as not eating up CPU or annoying the hell out of me. Still you had it better than one friend now in Iraq again whose computer I fixed. His PC had 34 Trojans of varying sorts a total of >70 viruses and more than 1100 pieces of spyware. Took me a solid week to fix since he didn't have backups so I had to do it the hard way.

 

[BOZ]

OK, maybe I spoke too soon? When I got home this evening, my Internet Explorer crashed and kept reopening over and over, so I decided to restart my computer. I don't know what happened at that point, but now Windows won't start up anymore. This is what happens when I power/up restart:

1. There is activity from the CD-Rom, and then the DVD-Rom, and the red light on the optical mouse comes on.
2. The red light on the hard drive lights up while there is drive activity.
3. I get a screen displaying the logo for the graphics card for a few seconds, which then goes away.
4. I get a black screen with a flashing thing resembling a command prompt, which moves down the screen a few steps and disappears.
5. The screen for Windows Safe Mode appears. I can choose to enter any version of Safe Mode, which loads up fine. This proves to me that Windows is not completely destroyed.
6. If I choose to "Start Windows Normally", go to "Last Known Good Configuration", or wait 30 seconds for it to time out, the computer attempts to start Windows.
7. The red drive light starts up again, and the screen for Windows XP comes up for a few seconds. However, instead of starting Windows, the computer starts over at step 1.

Any idea what to do here?

 

[XCorvis]

There's obviously a problem, but windows is restarting instead of showing the error. Here's how to see the error.

Boot into Safe Mode. Right click My Computer and select Properties. Click the Advanced tab. Find Startup and Recovery and click that settings box. Uncheck Automatically Restart. Click OK a few times. Reboot into normal mode and see if it gives you some more info.

 

[BOZ]

started a new thread since i'm facing a new problem...