Computer virus – McAfee took my money and did not help. Now what?

[Presentation]

Computer virus – McAfee took my money and did not help. Now what?

I got a computer virus. As best I can tell, here are the two issues this has caused;

#1) In search engine results such as Google, if I clink on the main result I do not go to that page. Instead a new browser window opens and briefly sends me to a page with a address that is long and I can’t fully read but starts something like www.windowclick.com then am sent to a different page, seemingly at random. Odley, if I click on one of the sub results of a page, I’m taken to that result as normal.

#2) Windows System restore does not work.

I am running Windows XP service pack 2. Explorer is version 7.

What I have tried:

I have the full blown McAfee antivirus, firewall, e-mail system. I have run this 4 times and it does find trogons but it does not fix the problem.

I went to the McAfee website, paid $80 to have them remotely take care of the issue. On Monday for about 2 hours a person worked on my computer remotely. Twice the system froze. They called me. From their accent and delay in talking I think the person was Pakistani but I don’t know for sure. Verbal communication was difficult but basically the person had me reboot then go to a website then type in a code so they again could work on the computer remotely.

The person downloaded and ran many programs. I don’t have a clue what they all did but my issues remain. I did observe the person delete my system restore points! After about 2 hours they disconnected. The phone rang and possibly the same person or someone with the same accent told me they need to elevate my issue to level 2 and that someone will call me within 24 hours. 24 hours expired yesterday, Tuesday at 5:30PM. No one has called me back.

What I did:
I purchased a new laptop, exported my outlook to a PST file, copied this and My Documents to a external hard drive then copied this onto the new laptop and imported the PST file into the new laptops Outlook program. I’m up and running on the new laptop and have not experienced any virus type issues. However it’s a pain in the ars as many things have changed. I’m trying to learn the newer versions of programs. For the life of me I don’t understand why Microsoft feels the need to move things around so much from one version of software to the next.

Remaining issue: I’d like to get the old laptop back to being fully operational, virus free condition then give it to one of my kids.

My question:
Given the above, what would you do next?

At this point I feel McAfee is incompetent, has lied to me, taken my $80 and ran.

 

[Hampton]

Go to www.bleepingcomputer.com and either research your issues or submit a description to get some help.

 

[Hampton]

Also, download and run Adaware Personnel (free - just say "no" to any additional purchases). It may be called Adaware SE or Adaware 2008. DO NOT DOWNLOAD ADWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is malicious.

Worst Case - Read about and then run combofix.exe with all anti-virus and other protections turned off - the folks at bleeping computer can help. Be careful, apparently, this is a very powerful program.

I highly recommend that you download the free, 30-day version of AVG anti-virus and run it a couple of times. It cleaned up my daughters totally screwed up computer. DO THIS FIRST.

Good luck.

 

[comsnark]

Yeah. . I would also try AVG anti-virus (free version, or 30 day trial of pro version). I would ALSO run Ad-Aware (the version I run today is Ad-Aware Free).

I recently ran everything looking for a virus that was bogging down the machine. After 12 hours of trouble shooting. . .I discovered the problem was actually a sticking fan on the video card. . . .(stupid 7 year old PC!).

If you are using a router, I would ensure that you don't have the old PC and new PC on the network at the same time behind the router until the problem is resolved.

Do you have a system disk for the old laptop? You may be looking at a full reload. If you do indeed head down that path, I would consider putting in a cheaper, larger, hard drive at the same time.

 

[chuck1]

I just want through a nasty virus problem. I think I've finally got it knocked out.

Here is a thread I started about it a couple weeks ago.
http://clubsearay.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16456

The malwarebytes program is that one that really did the trick and it is free. It took McAfee to also clean it up. Between the two I hope I'm done with it.

Hope it helps.

 

[tdappleman]

As others have mentioned - it sounds like you have a program installed which Adaware may find and resolve for you. You can also look in Control Panel and Add/Remove programs and look for anything which says 'Seach Bar' or 'Search Assistant' - the words may be slightly different but you can usually find it and try to uninstall it. If it does not allow you to uninstall you can google the actual name and instructions are usually out there. You can also look in Task Manager at your running processes and any which look strange or take a lot of memory you can google the actual filename and find out what it is that way as well.

 

[caruso1006]

Many times I have removed spyware/adaware by booting the machine into safe mode. Safemode only starts necessary services that allow the machine to run, usually the spyware does not start up.

If you have downloaded a spyware removal tool, then you can run this in safe mode. This removal tool rocks: http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Try this before you do a reformat from scratch! Let me know how it goes!

Corey

 

[billandamy]

Given the above, what would you do next?

.

Throw out that paperweight and buy a mac.

Why isnt everyone on mac yet? :huh:

 

[Hampton]

Throw out that paperweight and buy a mac.

Why isnt everyone on mac yet? :huh:

If everyone was on Mac, then the greatest damage/effort would be realized by hackers who target Mac operating systems. So, hackers would attack Mac's instead of PC's. They've already begun to do so. Mac'ers, beware.

 

[rktktpaul]

The malwarebytes program is that one that really did the trick and it is free.

This removal tool rocks: http://www.malwarebytes.org/

What they said. This program found stuff Norton and Microsoft couldn't!!

 

[Presentation]

Update:

I was able to reach McAfee customer service. They refunded my money then gave me a discount rate to try their premium service where you talk to a technician and he takes control of the computer via the internet.

This time the new technician seemed to know what he was doing.

The computer is now working.

Talk about a frustrating experience.

 

[MLauman]

For the life of me I don’t understand why Microsoft feels the need to move things around so much from one version of software to the next.

Because the 'new' versions are basically just culminations of the last few service packs so they have to make a few cosmetic changes so you think you're actually getting something 'new'.

At least, that's my impression of Vista and Office 2007.

 

[comsnark]

Throw out that paperweight and buy a mac.

Why isnt everyone on mac yet? :huh:

Because they are too $#*@& expensive.

I am currently looking to buy a *basic* laptop. The Mac's are simply *NOT* price competitive. Not even within 50%.

And no. . .I DO NOT spend enough hours monkeying around with PC's that don't work to ever justify a Mac on that basis.

If I took Presentation's approach, and just bought a new Laptop when the first one breaks. . then I would STILL be ahead buying a PC.

And maybe a MAC laptop will last longer than a PC. . but not so long enough to justify the Apple price premium. And no, combining longer life with less maintenance still doesn't make the decision close.

And finally. . .I am not an Apple hater. I recently destroyed a Ipod 5G (user error) and bought a 2G Touch two days later. Don't regret it at all. They have the Music end of things nailed. It's just the PC's that are overpriced.

And yes. . YOUR milage may vary. If we want to talk about this more, let's pop a beer first and then we can carry on with the proper attitude! :grin:

Update:

I was able to reach McAfee customer service. They refunded my money then gave me a discount rate to try their premium service where you talk to a technician and he takes control of the computer via the internet.

This time the new technician seemed to know what he was doing.

The computer is now working.

Talk about a frustrating experience.

I am glad that they did right by you. What was the problem?

Did you really need to buy the new laptop, or was this an excuse to upgrade?

This sounds like me bad video card experience. I could easily have just spend $500 on a new desktop PC. . but instead I opted to spend 5 hours and 5 beers to resolve the problem. Which left enough money for the Touch a few months later. . .

Because the 'new' versions are basically just culminations of the last few service packs so they have to make a few cosmetic changes so you think you're actually getting something 'new'.

At least, that's my impression of Vista and Office 2007.

Gotta agree on that one. That was my impression of office 2007 as well. . except that it is such bloatware that I was forced to do a RAM upgrade on my work laptop. Half the company did RAM upgrades as well.

I was testing Vista and had the same impression. Fortunately, someone up top figured out that with Vista, EVERYBODY would have been forced to upgrade and the Vista migration was quashed. And that was before the economy tanked.

If Windows 7 is a dud the way Vista was a dud, I suspect that eventually Mac's will take over despite being overpriced.

 

[billandamy]

Actually, we did a cost comparison here at work, including cost of ownership which is often times overlooked. In the long run (at least for a business anyway) with repairs, upgrades, continual maintenance (including virus protection etc) and down time, the macs were cheaper. As well, macs come with most programs you need whereas for the pc's you have to purchase lots of software.

You had to even add ram (pcs come with so little!) to run a program.

No need to pop beers to discuss. I am far less passionate about what computer people use vs other topics we have discussed here :grin:

 

[Chris R]

All the above being said, what really ticks me off, is the fact there are people out there with computer talent that have nothing better to do than create trojans and viruses. Geeze, it sure seems with that kind of talent, they could find a real job.

 

[comsnark]

All the above being said, what really ticks me off, is the fact there are people out there with computer talent that have nothing better to do than create trojans and viruses. Geeze, it sure seems with that kind of talent, they could find a real job.

WORD.

Actually, we did a cost comparison here at work, including cost of ownership which is often times overlooked. In the long run (at least for a business anyway) with repairs, upgrades, continual maintenance (including virus protection etc) and down time, the macs were cheaper. As well, macs come with most programs you need whereas for the pc's you have to purchase lots of software.

You had to even add ram (pcs come with so little!) to run a program.

Well, I freely grant that the economics on the buisness side are different. First off, my company buys different PC's than what a normal human would buy. The "buisness" PC's are much closer in price to the Macs. Plus, they buy a version of Office which is literally double (or is that triple?) the price of the version I use at home. And AVG free seems to work just fine. . .

So for me, the choice is clear. YMMV.

 

[VTSeaRay]

WORD.



Well, I freely grant that the economics on the buisness side are different. First off, my company buys different PC's than what a normal human would buy. The "buisness" PC's are much closer in price to the Macs. Plus, they buy a version of Office which is literally double (or is that triple?) the price of the version I use at home. And AVG free seems to work just fine. . .

So for me, the choice is clear. YMMV.

I was going to say use StarOffice, it used to be free on Google as part of Google Pack, but as of Nov '08, they removed it. You can still go to Staroffice.org or OpenOffice.org and get one of those versions there. It's cheaper than MS Office, and as far as I've seen with StarOffice, completely compatible.

-VtSeaRay

 

[Groucho]

I got a virus on Monday...Need the computor for work....So I brought it to the place I bought it...98.00 later I have my computor back and all erased...:smt013
They did save some of the files...but not my Quicken with my last 2 years of exopense details...So I loaded up my backup disc...Broken too...GRRRRR:smt013:smt013:smt013

 

[Turtlesboat]

I'm tellin' you... buy a Mac. I have every mac I ever bought and they are still running and productive. Better yet, I can still sell my macs on ebay and get $$. Buy a PC for 600 and 2 days later you'll be lucky to get half that. Macs are soooo good, that I haven't purchased a new one in 15 years. i buy all of mine used, and they are still faster and more loaded than PC's.

i've never had a virus, never had to buy hardware.

buy mac, be happy.

 

[fc3]

Try Ad Aware by Lavasoft. It's pretty good. I cleans up all the crap my nephew downloads to his pc when he goes to "play games."

Once you get the machine clean, create separate users for everyone who uses the computer. Do not give anyone the administrator or local administrator groups. They get just the standard user group. That's IT. That will stop some of the crap from infesting the operating system. Password protect the administrator account and give that password to no one. It also doesn't hurt to edit the system policies, but I forget how one does that on systems that are not networked to a PDC. (I run an AD domain @ home.)

Best regards,
Frank