Dianne-TX Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 Is there any way to fix a computer virus on your own or do you have to have someone else do it? If so, how? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaxMom Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 what sort of virus? I usually just google the symptoms and follow along in the tech forums. Yes, you can do it yourself. I'd probably download Spybot Search and Destroy (free) and run it to see if that catches and eliminates the problem, then move on from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 Download Avast and as suggested, Spybot and see what comes up. If there's anything detected that the programs can't deal with post abut it, with the name, here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaxMom Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 (edited) Download Avast and as suggested, Spybot and see what comes up. If there's anything detected that the programs can't deal with post abut it, with the name, here.Oooh, yes! I LOVE Avast! (and is it me, or do we all feel a Hijack This log coming on? ;)) Edited August 1, 2010 by MyCrazyHouse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 Oooh, yes! I LOVE Avast! (and is it me, or do we all feel a Hijack This log coming on? ;)) LOL! Then we'll separate the real geeks from the pretenders! :D I used to use AVG but once I tried Avast there was no going back. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 what sort of virus? I usually just google the symptoms and follow along in the tech forums. Me too. I haven't run into a trojan horse yet that I couldn't conquer with the aid of Google. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dandelion Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 If you have a PC (vs. a Mac) and have a version of Microsoft Windows that includes "System Restore", you may be able to use this functionality to get rid of the virus. I've been able to remove viruses successfully this way on our PC as well as for friends. With System Restore, you can restore your computer to a previous state (i.e. "pre-virus"), and you do not lose personal data files (such as Word documents, e-mail, etc.). System Restore automatically creates identifiable restore points that you can use to revert to a previous time. So all you have to do is pick a restore point date that is well before the date when you think the problem started and then restore your computer to that date. Here's a link to a Microsoft Support article that tells you how to run System Restore in Safe Mode: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304449 Some viruses disable your System Restore function (I recently encountered this while trying to help a friend remove a virus from her computer) - but you should be able to get around that by going into Safe Mode and running System Restore from there (this worked for me in this case). One caveat: this does not work for ALL viruses (they're getting more sophisticated all the time), but it's worked for me every time I've used it for virus removal. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dianne-TX Posted August 1, 2010 Author Share Posted August 1, 2010 I think it's the Antivir. It happened this afternoon and we went to Best Buy to ask them about it. They will fix it for $200, but we would like to save $$ if we can. We bought an external hard drive and backed up everything. The whole day we couldn't access the internet and boxes kept popping up constantly. My husband just put up with them while he downloaded the back up software and did the back up. Strange thing is that after that I tried to run our security program and it worked! I hadn't been able to do that all day. It was like nothing was wrong with our computer. So, it ran and said nothing was detected! I guess that what I get for downloading a free security program through Microsoft. But, anyway, it worked like normal the rest of the evening except for accessing the internet. We found instructions online through my dh work computer on how to disable the proxy server and access the internet. Did that and it worked and we were able to access the internet. So, we then started googling around for help removing a virus and found something and started listening to instructions. It mentioned rebooting your computer and putting it in safe mode. We don't know how to put it in safe mode, but we restarted it thinking we could find that option. Once I restarted it, the boxes started popping up again and everything started happening again as earlier and I couldn't do anything. Every time I would try to open anything a box would pop up and get in the way of allowing me to do anything. I also was not able to connect to the internet again. I tried opening control panel and changing the proxy server again, but every time it would pop up a box and close it. I tried multiple times and never was successful in opening it. So, now we are stuck again. Does any of this sound familiar? I'm sorry if I sound choppy in my explanation. We would love to save $200. I had plans to use that $$ for school items, of course! :) Any help would be appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim in TN Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 I understand your frustration! I just finished fixing my dd's computer. She also had the antivir thing. Be very careful not to install it or let it scan your computer! How I fixed it.. I went into safe mode, by restarting the computer. When it is starting back up, push the F8 key. Select Safe mode with networking. Once there, I ran her AVG antivirus program and Spybot. AVG didn't find anything, but Spybot did. I removed the spyware and restarted the computer. So far, so good. I hope this helps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaxMom Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 Oh, dear. I hate those obnoxious pop-up ones. :glare: I guess the pop-ups are somewhat useful, since they tip you off that there's something going on, though. Ok. So, to boot in safe mode, power down, then power back up. As the computer is just starting (before the Windows screen appears) start tapping the F8 key. You'll get a screen that looks like DOS with startup options on it - normal, safe mode, safe mode with networking. Use your arrow keys to highlight the safe mode and hit enter. (by the way, everything looks... "off" when you're in safe mode. It's ok. It'll go back to normal when you reboot in normal mode) The problem here is that you can't surf in safe mode. I would advise downloading (but not installing) SpyBot on your husband's computer, then transferring it to a flash drive or disk. Then you can install on the afflicted computer and be on your way. This is absolutely NOT a $200 fix. It would take them all of ten minutes, except for letting SpyBot run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizzie in Ma Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 also, it could be malware. I use Malwarelbytes, it is free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 I agree with Angela. Spybot is the way to go on this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KidsHappen Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 also, it could be malware. I use Malwarelbytes, it is free. This is what we use and it works most of the time. My hubby (who works in IT) once got a virus that took an entire team and a couple outsiders to fix. He also got one once that was so bad his company just replaced the computer. He works directly on the servers for companies. I don't know if they are targeted by hackers more or what but they have redundant firewalls, virus protection, spybot and such and they sometimes still get taken down hard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandamom Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 I'm reading this thread with interest because I have a spam trojan virus and I already had on the free AVG and free Ad-Aware versions. We got a call from our internet provider that one of the computers downloaded a virus (not sure that is a good thing or not:confused: . Anyway, our free versions are not taking care of this thing so does that mean just getting a paid version should take care of the virus or do I need to do more than that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertDweller Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 Oh, dear. I hate those obnoxious pop-up ones. :glare: I guess the pop-ups are somewhat useful, since they tip you off that there's something going on, though. Ok. So, to boot in safe mode, power down, then power back up. As the computer is just starting (before the Windows screen appears) start tapping the F8 key. You'll get a screen that looks like DOS with startup options on it - normal, safe mode, safe mode with networking. Use your arrow keys to highlight the safe mode and hit enter. (by the way, everything looks... "off" when you're in safe mode. It's ok. It'll go back to normal when you reboot in normal mode) The problem here is that you can't surf in safe mode. I would advise downloading (but not installing) SpyBot on your husband's computer, then transferring it to a flash drive or disk. Then you can install on the afflicted computer and be on your way. This is absolutely NOT a $200 fix. It would take them all of ten minutes, except for letting SpyBot run. This is what we had to do recently with dh's computer. Some type of pop-up just took over. using my computer, I found an old thread on here that told how to reboot and hit F8 to get into safe mode. From there dh did a system restore and everything was fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dianne-TX Posted August 1, 2010 Author Share Posted August 1, 2010 I've done this and am now trying to install Spybot on my computer. It popped up an error message about not being able to establish a connection to the server. What now? I tried to get on the internet in the safe mode with networking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted August 2, 2010 Share Posted August 2, 2010 I'm reading this thread with interest because I have a spam trojan virus and I already had on the free AVG and free Ad-Aware versions. We got a call from our internet provider that one of the computers downloaded a virus (not sure that is a good thing or not:confused: . Anyway, our free versions are not taking care of this thing so does that mean just getting a paid version should take care of the virus or do I need to do more than that. AVG and Ad-Aware are excellent programs. You won't find a program that you can pay for that will be any better. Try Avast and Spybot and if you're still having troubel Google for the name of the trojan. Sometimes there are specific tools to get rid of certain trojans but often as not you'll find forum posts from people who've asked for advice with the same trojan and received lots of excellent advice. It's what I do whenever I have a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dianne-TX Posted August 2, 2010 Author Share Posted August 2, 2010 Okay, I was able to connect to the internet by disabling the proxy setting. Found that on removevirus.org. It is downloading Spybot now. Will this find anything and remove it? Microsoft Essentials didn't find anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dianne-TX Posted August 2, 2010 Author Share Posted August 2, 2010 (edited) Okay, I think it's gone! I did spybot (and it found 3 things) and then restarted it and spybot was running again (I think I said yes to doing it again on the restart) and it was taking forever, so I stopped it (since it had already fixed those three things) and restarted it again and everything came up as normal. No constant, annoying popups that were keeping me from doing anything! Does this mean it's fixed? Is there anything hiding or does spybot take care of it? Now what is the next wise step? Should I continue using Microsoft Essentials since this happened using that security download or should I do something else? Edited August 2, 2010 by Dianne-TX Forgot to add info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim in TN Posted August 2, 2010 Share Posted August 2, 2010 It probably fixed it. Just make sure check for Spybot updates, immunize, and search for spyware often. You said you downloaded Spybot from another website. It's always a good idea to download programs from their own site. You wouldn't want to download a virus thinking it was safe because it had the same name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dianne-TX Posted August 2, 2010 Author Share Posted August 2, 2010 It probably fixed it. Just make sure check for Spybot updates, immunize, and search for spyware often. You said you downloaded Spybot from another website. It's always a good idea to download programs from their own site. You wouldn't want to download a virus thinking it was safe because it had the same name. I downloaded spybot from it's website. I found the hint about disabling the proxy setting for the internet connection on the other website. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim in TN Posted August 2, 2010 Share Posted August 2, 2010 I downloaded spybot from it's website. I found the hint about disabling the proxy setting for the internet connection on the other website. Oh, ok. Sorry, I read it wrong. Glad you were able to fix it! Take that Best Buy! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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