posted on January 23, 2009 04:12:55 AM new
Microsoft recommended that Windows users install the October update , then run the January edition of the MSRT to clean up compromised computers.
posted on January 23, 2009 04:26:36 AM new
While I have very little personal experience with them I'm guessing worms, viruses, adware, spyware etc. must be entertaining in some way. Otherwise who would continue to put up with them?
posted on January 23, 2009 04:57:58 AM new
I downloaded the January version of the Microsoft Removal Tool and ran a full scan (thanks to Google Base and Turbolister this took HOURS and HOURS). My system APPEARS To be clean.
I found this article about a new tool (Reimage) that will effectively clean infected computers (scan is free - they charge for the clean up) while preserving settings. It sounds like it would be worth the $ if your only other choice is to reformat.
"I have two topics this week. First, it appears my malware saga has come to a satisfactory solution. As I discussed two weeks ago, I tried Malwarebytes AntiMalware to exorcise demons on a system running XP Professional SP2. It worked . . . for 24 hours. The next day the PC started acting flaky again (see last week's column) even though AntiMalware was declaring the system clean.
I was about to throw in the virtual towel and strip and rebuild the machine when I discovered an online service called Reimage. Reimage downloads an ActiveX control to your Windows PC, which then launches an Internet Explorer shell that scans your system.
Reimage then produces a report of what its found and offers, for a price of $65 for a single PC ($79 for three machines), to fix your problems. The way this magic is done is by removing bogus files and replacing modified files from Reimage's online repository of Windows systems components.
So, I downloaded, rebooted in safe mode, ran the scan, let Reimage perform the fix, and voilà! I can't detect any signs of anything amiss. The machine runs better than ever, no popups are appearing, and processor utilization from deferred procedure calls and all other services are within normal limits. Amazing."
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posted on January 23, 2009 11:15:15 AM new
Very confusing all this virus stuff. Of course there is the age old question, “Who makes these evil invaders?” Logically, the first suspect could be those who want to sell you products that detect and remove said offenders. Most likely most of them come from social misfits that are holed up in their “basement” and glued to a screen since they were about three years old and know more about code than some Microsoft employees (and of course they know more about code that all of the ebay techs put together :=). Anyway,
my computer has been acting strange lately and I have mostly attributed it to not having reformatted for nearly five years. It could also be a failing hard drive that is losing sectors. I tried to defrag and got a message, “access denied.” WTF.
I tried to run the free Panda Active Scan mentioned in the article referenced by neglus and it took about an hour to get to 27% done. It had detected 25 infected files, one specious infection to that point at which point it must have crashed because I had left the room and when I cam back it had started over. I just stopped it.
Then I ran the Malwarebytes antimalware program that you guys talked about last week and it said that my computer was clean.
I then ran Adware and it revealed 12 infected objects So Malwarebytes finds none and Adware finds 12. I also have Norton and Norton says I am clean.
