HELP Comuter Guru's! I HAD 253 Viruses! 8(

[SpiralArchitect]

Hello folks.


Before you tell me that I should have an antivirus program and firewalls let me fill you in.

I have had Norton antivirus since I built this computer, over 2 years ago. I have also updated it every year and update everyday if I can.
I've also had ZoneAlarm for over a year now.

Norton caught alot of things, some email stuff, a few of the big viruses that came out a while ago.
For the last month I have noticed a wierd kinda of slow down with booting and running programs. I also use diskeeper 8.0 to defrag every day as well.

so fast forward, I decide to try a different virus program, I decided to try AVG 7.0 as some people reccomended it. So I got it, uninstalled norton, installed AVG and right away it detected a worm that obviously norton couldn't get.
okay, wierd but good. So I got that all sorted out and then I decided to erase the firewall software because I noticed everytime I booted I would have a constant 100% cpu usage *I'm using a dual PIII with win2K* so this was really bothering me, I decided to uninstall diskeeper and zonealarm, and all of a sudden *on may second* I started the internet and my homepage is the bc rich forum in IE6. Then I see this quick screen flick and all of a sudden I have this wierd toolbar under the main address bar in IE6.

I try to remove it using the view menu thinking I flicked it on by accident, but it kept coming back.
then I checked my taskmanager and noticed some strange .exe files that hadn't been there before.

wins32.exe
mstask.exe
WToolsS.exe
WToolsA.exe
WSup.exe

so these things can't be terminated and keep reapearing.

I do a search online and find out that the wins32.exe is a worm, and maybe that the otehr ones are as well, the mstask.exe is a legit file but may have been infected as well.

So I do all sorts of scans with AVG and nothing, I reinstall a firewall so I can't get the new sasser viruses, and so I find some removal info, on the wins32.exe and I follow it, not all of the instructions are correct and some of the steps I don't have to do.

now whenever I try to launch a program I get a small screen that pops up and says failed to load resource dll. but the program still loads.

anyhow so I find out about another program, "panda platinum pro 7" and I get it and start the scan, well an hour later and it states I have 253 viruses found on my hard drive. 253?!?!?!?#!%?!#?^!?#$?!#?$ WHAT THE F#^&????
this blew my mind as AVG and norton knew nothing of the sort.

I still have the problems but the cpu usage is back to normal sort of.

does anyone have any advice besides reformat?
and if so I want to put in winxp

are there any good sites to tell me in what order I should install things, like winxp, chipset drivers, vid card drivers, and so on.

I also need help with getting my computer locked up tighter than a school girl!

I used to keep up on this stuff but this is freaking me ou!

thanks guys!


Chris

[etaeniura]

Re: HELP Comuter Guru\'s! I HAD 253 Viruses! 8(

I had a similar problem-I have had McAfee for a few years, and then recently had the same slowing down problem. SO I got norton and it found all this crazy adware stuff. I went throught he instructions to remove it all, and then none of my software would work correctly. SO I had to reeformat my hard drive. what a pain in the arse.

[Black Mariah]

Re: HELP Comuter Guru\'s! I HAD 253 Viruses! 8(

Get Ad-Aware and whatever other adware remover someone else will eventually mention. Run them religiously. If you want to take this further...

Level 1:
Quit using Internet Explorer. Use Opera or Mozilla, they don't have ActiveX controls so nothing installs itself without you knowing it. They also have built-in popup blockers and are generally much better than IE.

Level 2:
Quit surfing for porn or warez, or going to any site with any kind of dubious content. This includes ALL of geocities and all blogs. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Level 3:
Quit using Windows. This isn't for everyone. If you have a large amount of Windows-only programs that you use, this isn't viable and I'm not going to tell you otherwise. Personally, I use Linux. A better choice for most people would be to switch to a Mac since it's easier, but the hardware cost may outweight the benefits of not having to deal with (many, if any) viruses or adware programs. Linux is a good choice as long as you get one of the distributions centered towards new users, and don't mind re-learning a few things (ANYONE can be up to speed in under a week).

Level 4:
Quit using the internet. Unplug your computer. Go outside. Realize that real-life human-interaction porn is far better than internet porn. Never use a computer again. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

But try Ad Aware first. [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]