Avoiding viruses?

[oneTVslave]

Phew! I think I finally got rid of everything. *holds breath and crosses fingers* And without calling IT! AdAware would get rid of most stuff, but there were some processes that kept starting over when I would reboot. I manually stopped them and found all of the .exe and .dll files assocaited with them and deleted them. Looking at the modified date really helped because I could see where they all kept re-installing at the same time.

Msconfig does not seem to work on Windows 2000, but through lots of searching and slightly modifying your suggestions, I think I identified all of the nasty culprits. I found some log file in my WINNT/System 32 directory that detailed what was loading at startup and it listed some "unrecognized" dll files that were installed. This is my first time daring to go on the internet since then, and so far, no popups!

Thanks for all of the advice guys, FORT peeps are the greatest.

[oneTVslave]

Ha! I lied! Five seconds after I posted, all that crap came back.

Gotten rid of it with SpyBot now, we'll see what happens. And no, I will not keep posting a play by play and continue to monopolize this thread - this will be my last post on the matter. But thanks for letting me vent here.

[geekgirl]

Here are manual removal instructions for WhenUSave and Memory Watcher. I know they're long but they need to be followed exactly or this crap will just keep coming back.


http://www.pestpatrol.com/pestinfo/m/memory_watcher.asp
http://www.pestpatrol.com/pestinfo/w/whenusave.asp

[oneTVslave]

Thanks for the info, geekgirl. I am still working on it..

Hey, I am in Atlanta too, by the way!

[dreaminginblond]

Check your c:\windows\system directory for any DLL or EXE files that have funny names (like "zee0023.dll" and such). Delete them, and empty your recycle bin, then reboot. They'll be about 32k in size.

Ok, I reread this thread yesterday and saw this and was curious so I went and checked mine. I think I have a bunch of them, but how can you be sure? I don't want to delete something I need and I don't really know enough about computers to be sure? Any ideas?

[oneTVslave]

dreaminginblond, I wouldn't delete them unless you are sure you have a problem. I would definitely try AdAware and SpyBot Search and Destroy before manually deleting anything.

By the way, I think my computer is cured - finally!

[dreaminginblond]

I didn't delete anything but I did download the trojan guarder and so did my son on his computer. I highly, highly recommend it for anyone whose thinking about it. We also installed a firewall after doing trojan guarder. :thumbsup for the good suggestions!

[speedbump]

Ok, I reread this thread yesterday and saw this and was curious so I went and checked mine. I think I have a bunch of them, but how can you be sure? I don't want to delete something I need and I don't really know enough about computers to be sure? Any ideas?

www.answersthatwork.com then click on task list. They have all the funkly programs listed alphabetically. It also gives advice on what to do with them.

[oneTVslave]

I visited that site speedy, thanks for the link. The only problem, as was my case, is that the trojans often install files with random names that will not show up in any documentation. But, the fact that my particular file was not listed anywhere on there, neither as a good program or bad program, is what helped me identify it as the guilty culprit (along with the fact that the date it was last modified was exactly the time when my problems first started). I think the file name was something like 01fkae3.exe...

[dreaminginblond]

Conincidentally since posting in this thread, I got a virus on my computer. It was called sysupd.exe and it was harder to get rid of than times when I've had infected files before because it's used by Windows and isn't as simple as following the removal instructions and just deleting it. It also completely messed up my NAV to the point where it disabled Auto Protect.

I finally got rid of it by purchasing Norton System Works and replacing my NAV 2003 with this and then doing multiple system scans until it was gone. The part the bothers me the most about viruses or trojans is not knowing where you're getting them from.