ARGH!

[Lits]

I thought I'd be back full time after that last show ended, but then dead week hit... now it's finals week, and ALTHOUGH I should be done by Thursday, I now have some kind of spyware and virus that I can't seem to shake. It randomly shuts me down and throws pop ups at me every thirty seconds. ARGH!! I have no idea where my spyware protection went or my virus scanner, both seemed to have dissapeared. Anyone know what I can do about this? Short of spending bukoodles of money on new antivirus and spyware protection?

[Avzeke (Khr0n1k)]

Reformat if you are bored enough.

[Ash]

Seeing as this is partly what I do for a living I'll throw out some solid, albeit harsh advice.  You can go the route of booting in safe mode, re-installing fresh virus protection and spyware protection and then having them scan your system.  They could find the viruses in question and sucessfully clean them for you. But, in my experience (and I have plenty) once a virus reaches a point where it can cause your computer to crash and shutdown, the steps mentioned above don't really work.  So what do you do?

Here comes the harsh part...  It's reload time.  By this I mean a complete and fresh reload of your machine.  Blow away the harddrive completely, even blow away the partition its on. (You do this by first putting in your O/S CD and rebooting your machine using the CD and during the prompts you have the option of blowing away and recreating your partit).  Now I know this is a time consuming ordeal but if you look at it with the perspective of overall time involvement; which is quicker, doing a quick fix which will take hours anyway and may not even work completely or doing the one thing you know will fix the problem?

Just my advice,

-Yotogi
Certified Microsoft Engineer and Business Partner

P.S. If you choose the reload route here's a excellent company I recommend for your virus protection and spyware/adware needs.

http://www.trendmicro.com  (This is the same company that I have all of my clients use for their corporate virus protection needs.)

[Eroz]

You have your MCSE Yotogi?

[Anonymous]

Cool, Yotogi is an MCSE! I was studying to become that, and when I took the tests, I missed every single test by one question T_T

But, I digress, I say you should reinstall. When I put together my new system, I made the mistake of not immediately loading my anti-spyware/virus scanner on it. Needless to say that I caught a virus/spyware/adware rather swiftly, and it completed screwed the system by hooking some of the main Windows DLLs and it had spread deep enough into my system (in the span of about 5 minutes), that all the files I would manually repair in safe mode, would be immediately infected again. It was rather hardcore. I nuked t he system and started from scratch with a virus scanner and spyware/adware removal tools as the first installed application.

I'm sorry to say, Lits, but this is the most absolute and effective way of fixing your problem;  Just wiping it out.

HOWEVER

Backup any important stuff first. Things that aren't usually infected, to be precise, such as your My Documents folder, and things not on your System Drive (If you have more than one installed hard drive).

Viruses usually attack the system DLLs in your Windows, System, System32, and dllcache folders. So My Documents should be a safe bet for backup.

I hope you can get this fixed ok

[Anonymous]

HOWEVER

Backup any important stuff first.

Kayda, I love you.

Yes, you should always back up your files and settings using the Wizard in XP.  It's not perfect but it saves so much time later on.  And remember to set your username same as you had it before so nothing goes skewiff.

[Bellthazor]

Should always back up onto sometype of media CD,DVD,mobile HDD, etc...usually reinstalling your software is time consuming, but atleast you can copy your imprtant info back into it's proper directory and not have to redo all of your work/updates. :p

[Subb]

Should always back up onto sometype of media CD,DVD,mobile HDD, etc...usually reinstalling your software is time consuming, but atleast you can copy your imprtant info back into it's proper directory and not have to redo all of your work/updates. :p

Try saying that in one breath!

[Avzeke (Khr0n1k)]

did and was successful

[Lits]

Thanks everyone, for you help. I'm in the process of backing up everything I need. This is going to suck.

[Ash]

Good luck Lits!

Oh and Eroz, Yes I have my MCSE along with a few other Certs.

[Eroz]

A+, Net+, Server+?

[Lits]

I finally got around to getting a new headset... but right out of the box the %&*^#@$* microphone is busted! Am I the only one that Logitech hates? Or is there just something wrong with my computer (other than the 9,000,000 viruses)

It appears I am just NOT MEANT to play this game!

[Anonymous]

Are you using the right mic?  I use the secondary port on my PC (it's on the top) and have to select Mic2 to get anything out of it

[Eroz]

USB Mic rock the house. BTW PS2 headsets WORK as USB Mic on PCs.