One hell of a computer virus???

[dusktildawn]

Firstly I want to apologise for my absence. I've not been around for a while. Got absolutely squillions of work to do for college which is taking an immense amount of time. Working on so many briefs at the mo its unbelieveable..... Portraiture, Craetive processes, Still life....The list goes on and on.

I was taking some abstract images from the web, Google to be precise. I was creating a montage of these using PS as part of my research. Unfortunately on pulling one of these images into PS Norton reported a "Malicious Script" Before I could do anything this installed itself onto my puter!!

PS immediately froze. My puter slowed down to a virtual standstill. Internet explorer attempted to access various sites and placed another toolbar on my window (Toolbar888). I'm starting up my machine and a pop up states DLL error and behind that another pop up advises that "Project 1" (The virus?!) has a runtime error.....I have tried to ID this but whilst NAV appears to have found it it is unable to remove this. I manually removed about 70 odd cookies the virus installed. The computer has now reverted to its original speed (Which was slow in the first place... Its ancient... The keyboards in Latin :). The only apparent problem which is a infinite pain in the arse is that each time I close a window in Internet Explorer the program crashes prompting a Send Error Report....


Anyone got any suggestions? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers Peeps

All the best

Charley

[bartonflyer]

You need to start up windows in safe mode then run your av software. Toolbar888 is spyware that hijacks your browser and may then allow other bad stuff in. you should run adaware from lavasoft which should get rid of it, if not then Hijack this from Merijn software definitely will but you have to know what you are doing and delete the right thing!! Best of luck Ian

[BarryM]

yes and also remember delete your archived system restore files once in and rectified the issue from safe mode, make sure your backed up but what happens is when xp takes a copy of your pc for each system restore, it archives any viruses on it too, now i dont think they do anything but most certainly keep showing up in virus softare. Ive spent weeks rescanning and sorting to realise its locked away in there

[dusktildawn]

Cheers Guys... I'm a bit of a divvy with PC's... Can run around a Mac no problem but windows baffles the life from me. Unfortunately I'm still running windows 2000 on this old laptop. The Grandson knackered the Mac and my newer laptop running XP. This is the only beasty I have left until I get some money to upgrade. Ho Hum :( Got 40gb of stuff stuck on the drives of both of these that I can't access.....Only consolation is that I know its still there.

Dare say I'll have to invest in a newer version of Norton...Cheapskate that I am I let my subscription lapse in October 2005. I assume that you can start up using the Norton disk in safe mode? I'll give it a wee try and see how i get on.

Thanks for all your help guys.

All the very best :)

Charley

[bartonflyer]

With W2000 you're slightly better off than with XP as it doesn't cache all the system changes, so once you get rid of the problem you should stay rid of it! Don't pay for Norton - get Avast (http://www.avast.com/), it's free and better - you can still try startig up in safe mode though and run your existing AV, it may sort it, but as I said you also need some any spyware and adaware (http://www.lavasoft.com/) from lavasoft.com is probably the best.

Cheers Ian

[BarryM]

agreed, nortons is a huge resource eater on a pc, id bin that and use soemthing else.

[MsHey]

I use to use Norton & I received a virus FROM them. There are 2 freeware programs we now use - AVG and AVAST! . They both offer professional/commercial choices you can purchase, but still offer the free version as well. They are both awesome & work great!!!! I've been virus free for 3 years now!!!!

[JonUK]

Dusk my memory of 2000 is that it gives you a 'boot from last safe boot' mode...in other words a last known safe boot. Have you tried this? Going back to a point prior to where you downloaded the malicious file?...Just a thought

[lionhart]

Hi guys,

I just thought I'd try the avast program, I have Norton and it's up to date.
It found loads of viruses in my emails, so I think I'll buy a copy of this.

Thx.

[bartonflyer]

Hi guys,

I just thought I'd try the avast program, I have Norton and it's up to date.
It found loads of viruses in my emails, so I think I'll buy a copy of this.

Thx.

If it's for personal use then AVAST is free!!

[MsHey]

You beat me to it - I was just about to say the same thing! AVAST! is awesome! You couldn't pay me to use Norton, but that's just me! :crazy:

[lionhart]

Maybe I downloaded the wrong copy, it says I got 57 days left to use it????:banghead:

[bartonflyer]

Maybe I downloaded the wrong copy, it says I got 57 days left to use it????:banghead:

Click here (http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-4-home_pro-revision-history.html) for the home edition, you do have to register it and they send you an unlock key via mail