Ditto what Starleen said. I would, however, only wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows and your software suite as a last resort. You WILL lose EVERYTHING on your hard drive when you do that.
System Restore
can work, but some nasties can create their own restore points and reload themselves after you've restored your computer. I'm not knocking that method - it
does work - just know that it doesn't work all the time.
I've discovered that when dealing with viruses/Trojans/bots/malware no single anti-virus/anti-malware program catches everything. With DW working tech support for a major internet service provider for the last 2 years, I’ve been able to confirm that. Now I use a combination of programs to scan my computer.
A quick-and-easy/down-and-dirty way to check to see if you have some sort of nasty running in the background is to do an msinfo32 check.
In Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7, click START, then RUN. In the RUN window, type msinfo32 and click OK - the System Information window will open. In the left side pane, click the plus sign next to Components, then the plus sign next to Network. Click PROTOCOL. In the pane to the right, you'll see a lot of info in what's called the Name Field. All you're concerned with here is the word NAME. Scroll down the list and count how many times you see the word NAME. If that number is more than 18, you have a virus, Trojan, or some other form of malware running in the background. Less than 18 is fine - I currently have 14.
That done, just click the X in the top right corner to close the System Info window.
As I said above, I use a combination of programs to scan my system. All of them are free. Please know that I’m in no way affiliated with any software company, and have no interest in any of these products. These are just the products I use on our computers.
Malwarebytes (Free Version):
http://www.malwarebytes.org/
Avast Free Antivirus:
http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download
Spybot Search and Destroy:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/home/index.html
RemoveIT Pro (Free Version):
http://www.incodesolutions.com/removeit.php
Avast is my normal anti-virus program that runs all the time - I don't like Norton or MacAfee, but that's just my opinion.
Having so little room on your hard drive, you’ll most likely be able to install only one of the above at first. The first one I’d go for is Malwarebytes. It does a great job of seeking out and getting rid of the nasties on your system and seems to find more of them on the initial scan than the others.
Ok, this is just me talking here, so anyone with more knowledge or experience, please do correct me if I’m wrong. If it were me, I’d download and install the free version of Malwarebytes. Open the program and click the UPDATE tab, then click CHECK FOR UPDATES. Download any updates it finds. That installs the most recent virus definitions into the program. Once that’s done, restart your computer in Safe Mode. (On most Windows based computers, you can do that by restarting your computer. After Windows closes and the monitor goes black, press and hold the F5 key. A screen will come up asking you how you want to start Windows. Select Safe Mode and press ENTER.)
Do not go into Safe Mode with Networking – you don’t want to go online (or allow the virus to go online in the background) at this point.
When the system is running and you have a larger version of your desktop on the screen, open Malwarebytes. For your first scan, click Perform a Quick Scan, then click the SCAN button. A quick scan searches the most common places viruses and other nasties install themselves. Let the scan run (it takes about 5-6 minutes, depending on how big a hard drive you have) and follow any prompts that pop up. When the scan is complete, click VIEW RESULTS. A scan log will open up in Notepad – just minimize that for now. Make sure there’s a checkmark in the box next to any nasties named in the scan results, and click REMOVE SELECTED. The program will quarantine those files it sees as infected. You can then bring that scan log back up to see exactly what the program did. You’ll then need to restart your computer normally – Malwarebytes may prompt you to do so if it needs to.
That should fix some of the problems. It’s rare to have just one infection. Usually by the time you notice a problem, you already have multiple infections. I’d recommend a full system scan with Malwarebytes after the Quick Scan, but know going in that it can take quite a while to scan your entire system. I normally run an entire system scan overnight while I’m asleep. I just follow the directions above, clicking Perform Full Scan instead of Perform Quick Scan, then click the SCAN button, shut off the monitor, then go to bed. I deal with the scan results the next morning.
I run a monthly full system scan in Safe Mode with each of the above programs the same way. The rest of my scans are run with Windows running normally.
The only program I listed above that needs a bit of warning is RemoveIT Pro. I’ve noticed that it doesn’t play well with other anti-virus/anti-malware programs. It’ll throw up false positive infection reports and cause other errors, so I install it when I need it, then remove it when I’m done with it.
The two most important things to remember no matter what anti-virus products you have is to keep them updated and USE THEM. I like Avast because it automatically updates as soon as I turn the system on, then again several times a day. I have it set up to run a complete system scan every Tuesday night at 2am. I highly recommend doing something similar. Update your anti-virus software and scan your system at least once a week. Heck, update it on Sunday night before bed and run the scan while you're asleep.
I’m in no way an expert on viruses, Trojans, or malware. I’m 100% positive that there are others on this board who know a LOT more than I do. This is just what I do to get rid of nasties on my system(s). If I’m wrong about
anything at all, PLEASE correct me!
by starleen2 » Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:12 am 
