Spyware-ridden pc

[JacksterMan]

Hey Guys,

I'm fixing a computer for a family friend. She called me, telling me that internet explorer was frozen. I simply told her to restart the computer, thinking it had stopped responding, but she had already done that. She restarted it twice but the problem stayed, so I went over to her house. It turns out Internet Explorer was really frozen and would not respond. I went to task manager and there were <u>several instances</u> of it running. Norton antivirus reported it was turned off, and that it was "damaged" and could not function. We signed into her daughter's account, and I started laughing. A kitten as a cursor, customized system sounds (like when closing a window, or when an alert pops up). Yup, she installed those "free" programs that load your computer with adware

So I installed (off my flash drive, since the machine can't access the internet) Spybot Search and Destroy, AVG Free, and Firefox. I ran Spybot S&D and it found several entries (mywebsearch,PromoOffers, etc.) which I removed. Then I installed firefox. Internet Explorer has stayed the same (after removing the entries and rebooting), Firefox can't access the internet, and the computer works fine in <b> Safe Mode</b>, so I'm pretty convinced it's spyware/virii.

Any help? I'm hoping I won't have to do a clean install, but it's looking like that might be the only option right now.

Specs:
HP Pavilion (one of the more recent models)
XP Media Center
1024Mb RAM
250GB
1.5Mbps DSL connection

help?

thanks, jacksterman

[Midknyte]

did you look at this sticky?
Antivirus/Antispy

spybot is weak sauce. at least get windows defender on there. counterspy also has a trial version available. Antivir is a better choice for freebie AV

[JacksterMan]

Thanks a lot Midknyte, it's been a while since I've had to deal with spyware.

Last time I did it, running Ad-Aware was more than enough, lol; looks like things have changed.

[Sterling_Aug]

Try Adware Away.

[JacksterMan]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm going over to her house again later today so I'll be installing Windows Defender. I'll also try scanning with Adware Away and a-squared.

Thanks a lot,
JacksterMan

[G Ray88]

Try running the Spyware and Anti-virus programs in safe mode.
You might have to do a clean install if it's far to gone.
Good Luck

[intimidator]

Blah, backup/format reinstall.......then setup with prevx & nod32 & they will be good to go. That system has a restore partition too. Fix it the right way, then you know its perfect when you leave.

[crossedup]

http://www.spychecker.com/program/winsockxpfix.html

Dont forget that one, if Firefox cannot access the Inet as well that needs to be run.

[JacksterMan]

Hey guys, thanks for the help. I installed Windows Defender and ran A-Squared in safe mode. It got rid of scores of spyware but Firefox could still not access the net anywhere but in Safe Mode. After messing around with it for a while, it turns out Norton Internet Security was stopping the internet from working.

I detest, and let me say it again, detest Norton! This is not the first time NIS has given me internet connection issues (both on my own machines and on other people's machines) NIS should be outlawed. There are much better, cheaper, non-resource hogging apps out there.

Thanks for the help guys,
JacksterMan