Interesting that a virus/adware/malware/horse or whatever got into my laptop since last evening. Before everything basically 'locked up' a 'urgent-virus warning & something about last 10 days' which vanished before I could absorb the exact words.

Pop-ups with virus warnings, & a 'miracle software ranging $49 to $69. Had a microsoft/windows 'look', but co was in London! Heck, I don't give my CC info out like that.

Four (4) hours of searching & deleting & I think I found the bugger with windows explorer & task manager?

Anybody else see or hear of this?

I had one that was so nasty I ended up formatting my hard drive. It was the same kind of thing. The desktop was changed to "you are infected" and there were nonsense popups about various viruses. The problem with this one was it intercepted all of the maintenance tool calls (regedit, system restore etc). I was even infected in safe mode. I could manage to get it going in command line but all of the useful commands were blocked. I was able to retrieve most of my data but I was afraid to move to much in fear of moving the virus.

Greg:
I don't profess to be a computer maven, probably never will. I tried all the 'utilities', none would start/operate.

With good old task manager, and preserverance, I think it's gone. When I get home late tonite, that will tell.

I thought it interesting that the "cure" was able to open, and I even called the 800# which is a sham.

I'm hoping for the best!

OK, so much for what I thought was a cure.

Turn on tonite, it starts normal...click on anything..."It's back"

Can't open anything at all!

On the 'old' running Win 2000 & dial-up, the DSL software don't like this antique.

HELP

If you have stuff on said computer that you need, turn it off (continuing to do things on it will make the problem worse) and take it to a pro. If you don't need anything, totally reformat the hard drive and reinstall your OS of choice. Either way, reformat and reinstall is probably the only way to make sure everything is clean--but a pro can get important files off for you without spreading things.

I'm checking with the IT guy at work Fri AM, & if he can't help, then off to the lap top shop....Grrrrrr!

Since your running Win2K, Do you still have the Alerter and Messenger services enabled?
These are known to be exploited for popup crap like that. Maybe you could try and disable them in Administrative Tools/Services, if you have administrative privileges and see if that helps.
Unfortunately, task manager normally only terminates a process until the system reboots, then it will load all over again.

Do you log on and run your system from an administrator account by default?
If so, that’s not good since it makes it much easier for bad stuff to setup and take control of your system.
You should probably set yourself up with a user account having limited privileges and set windows to automatically log you on to that account at startup.
I have my old Win2K system setup like this so that software can only be installed/removed or changes made to the AntiVirus/firewall and Services started/stopped when logged in to a separate administrator account.

To those who get nasty Trojans and worms. Many are very hard to remove with Windows running. If you have a second computer, you can purchase an $15-$25 adapter that will plug in the back of a hard drive ether SATA or IDE and allow you to plug it into a USB port. You can then use the antivirus on the working machine to scan an kill the bug on the infected drive. I have on and us it often to fix customers drives. I think Avira is the best anti virus program. It WILL NOT load your computer down like many others. But as always be very careful where you download a program from. There are MANY look alike web sites that are FULL of malware. Robert

IT guy cleared the bug, but..no internet access. IE message that a firewall won't allow any website access. Back to IT today, I hope.

Re-loaded IE-8 & DSL software. IT installed an anti-malware program. Windows Firewall is up & running....the razor wire is being installed & the german shepherd is at my side! Hopefully....it's all OK now.

Told my wife...NO email attachments. (Period)

Thanks for all the help guys!

Kjay:
Just an FYI, the laptop with the bug was this one (Toshiba Satellite) with Win XP. The 'bug' got by Kaspersky AV somehow. No IM, Messenger, only IE8, via DSL and AOL email. Could not access anything but task manager that night, and that was sporadic. The 'old' one is also a Toshiba Satellite running Win2000, via dial-up as DSL software don't like Win 2000. Old & reliable; but....pathetically slow!
Protected by ....Norton.

I'm going to setup the account thing, that's a good point & Thanks for that.

Westuplace:

I'll look into Avira...my Kaspersky is due for the annual $$$ 8/9/2010.

Thanks for the hard drive idea, but...I work off of two laptops & don't have a clue how to access the HD. (Not that I want to)

So far, all is well

Thanks again

The lap top drives are usually going to be regular ATA IDE or SATA but the plug is different so you need an adapter. I ended up with a couple adapters to clone a failing drive into a new one (on my shop desk top) for a drive swap.
I do have an old Think pad that has a strange drive in it but I haven't really taken it apart to see if it is a garden variety IDE in a carrier with an adapter. That was the way the HP I did a while ago worked.

All I have to say is...you are a brave man! IF I take something this small apart, or try to 'open it up', the next step would be the trash.

I really hate working on laptops myself but this was a favor for my wife's friend. I have a few of my own I have never seen the inside of.
That is why I like desk tops. With the exception of Dell and Apple they all use the same parts and you can take them apart with a #2 phillips screwdriver and a 1/4" nut driver. For the most part, I don't even need to put my glasses on