Screen Savers Depot

How can I get rid of the remnants of the Antivir Virus and possible Adware?

I am a college student and recently bought a used Dell Precision M60 laptop with Windows XP Professional. I was waiting to install Norton Antivirus until I went home to get my dad's copy of it, but only a few days after I bought the computer, it became infected with the the Antivir virus. Everytime I tried to go to a new website, a page would come up, warning me that the website might contain a virus and that I should buy protection from Antivir. Once, my laptop screen turned blue, and it said that it had been infected with a trojan. The name of it was "Monster", with several letters and numbers behind it. The warning also said my computer was performing a "file dump," and then my computer shut down. It scared me at first, but I soon realized that there was no trojan and that it was still just Antivir. I ran malware megabytes and it found and removed several files infected with antivir. When I used the internet again. it was better, but everytime I use a search engine, and clicked on one of the results, my computer is redirected to another search engine or an advertisement. I have to type the url directly into the address bar for it to work. Other random pop-ups with advertisements also come up often. For instance, when I was in the middle of writing a letter on hotmail, an ad came up for virus protection. A few times since I have run Malwarebytes, my computer gives me the message that my computer has to restart because the D Com server process launcher service was terminated unexpectedly. After that, another message pops up saying that windows closed a program (the Generic Host Process) to protect my computer. Then my computer restarts. This seems similar to the time when my computer shut down with the fake trojan message. I don't know if my laptop is still infected with remnants of Antivir, or if antivir is completely gone and my laptop just shuts down and goes to other websites because something is still messed up in the computer's system. I think that it might also be infected with adware. I went to a website for free screensavers--i think it was screensavers.com. When I went to the website, it said that something was downloading to my computer. I immediately left the website and looked up information about it on the MacAfee site advisor site. The website said, "In our tests, we found downloads on this site that some people consider adware, spyware or other potentially unwanted programs." I ran malware megabytes again, and it found 1 file for adware. Yuck! So, I researched and installed AVG the antivirus protection program within a day after I ran Malware megabytes. When I went to the google website and clicked on one of the search results, AVG blocked the page and gave a warning that malware was detected. I did a scan with AVG, and it didn't find anything so I don't get the messages anymore. I tried to go online yesturday and an advertisment for Clear internet service came up, instead of my homepage. I could not use any other website. I was able to get online today, but my computer server is still directed to other servers when I try to use search engines. I know one thing I will never go without antivirus protection again, that is for sure! What can I do to fix my computer and remove the possible remnants of Adware and Antivir? Thank you very much!

Public Comments

1. Well this is odd.MBAM should be able to sort this out. However you may have othe r malware present. First off a couple of checks, in I.E go to tools > internet options > connections > lan settings. Look at the part for use proxy server, if this is ticked, untick it. Secondly, check the host file. Navigate to C\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts, right click on the host file and choose open, when asked what program to use choose notepad. Now unless your using something like Spybot, which has a tool to block malicious sites, the onlyentry should be local host 127.0.0.1 If there any other entries, delete them, choose file then save. Here are some excellent other programs you can try HitmanPro. (require small installation and uses online scanning ) http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro DrWeb Cureit ( standalone AV, will not interfere with AVG ) http://www.freedrweb.com/ SuperAntiSpyware http://www.superantispyware.com/ Best of luck, please post back if you have any problems or success