Hi

I'm wondering if anyone can help.

I've been working on a customer PC on and off for a couple of days which was infected with various viruses and spyware.

I've cleaned the system with Malwarebytes, Super Anti-Spyware, Vipre, AVP tool, ESET online scanner, Combofix and SmitFraudFix.

Unfortunately I'm still have problems with the following ...

1) Opening IE in normal mode, simply get a egg timer for a couple of seconds and then nothing!!, but it opens fine in Safe Mode -

I've reset IE and all it's settings, then uninstalling v8. When I try to reinstall the installer never finishes simply gets stuck on installing core Component’s.

I've also uninstalled SP3 and reinstalled.

2) General installers are also not working! For example I've tried to install Ad-Aware, see if this will help, but the installer just hangs.

The owner only has the one account, so I can also tried logging into the Administrator account which tells me that I don't have the permissions to do so.

I believe the problems I'm having above are due to permissions (?) but I'm not sure if there is any way to easy and quickly reset them!

I ready don't want to nuke the drive and reinstall if I can help it.

Can anyone suggest anything else to try?

Thanks in advance

Richard

Check the XP fixes from Doug Knox

+1

You could also run the windows repair from the CD (recovery console) which replaces broken/missing files but leaves the OS intact.

Thanks guys

When you say the recovery console, do you mean when you start off the Windows CD and get a dos window?

If so which command should I use?

I'm looking at Dougknox.com and there are lots of fixes.

Can you recommend any which would help? Nothings jumping out at me!!

Thanks

Windows repair as per this article, so you don't lose personal data. If you follow this method, windows will need to be reactivated though. (No biggie) I still back up personal data anyway, 'cause I don't like to take any chances.

http://techie-buzz.com/how-to/completel ... files.html

Doug Knox's site is a wealth of info. Same with Kellys Korner.

Those are great "fix" sites but if you don't have the time to invest in looking through all of it and trying different things, sometimes a windows repair is the easiest way to do it.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp.htm

+1 for a Repair Install
Make sure you have a matching XP CD and the product key for the version installed.
You'll also have to reinstall IE8 for things to work correctly. See my post on this TechNibble thread: http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9352 and this page: http://www.paulscomputerservice.net/articles/article.php?ID=159

Hi Richard,

Yeah sounds like it was pretty badly infected. Have you tried to do a system restore? If that doesn't work then you might like to try the D7 tool to repair damage that has been done to your infected system.

If the PC has a bad infection the "System Restore" files are likely compromised also.
Even rolling back before the infection wouldn't help because malware knows where to install itself.

Yeah your right blain, the restore points can be corrupted or contain the infection, a system restore is just the first thing I do when I have a infected machine. It just might return it back to a point where you can run your gammut of removal tools, seems to work better on XP machines as they have more restore points.