OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

Yes, the prodigal child has come home. Why you ask? Because the brains reside in this forum. I recently had to reboot/format/rescue my computer, don't know why but it just got so slow clogged that we decided to start from the system restore again. Now for my problem, we had no anti-virus protection, my Norton being long expired, so I downloaded 'Avast' anti virus from downloads.com . Seemed to work fine for a few weeks now we get sudden virus attack Messages upon starting the computer every day. they say that a sign of the 'Win32:Adware-001[trj]' has been found in the /documents/winshow/winshow.dll file and also in the System Volume Information\_restore{blah blah lots of numbers blah}.dll .

Anyone know about this Win32:Adware virus?? tried a general search about it, can't find it at all. The free Stinger from McAfee can't find anything wrong on the computer and when I select a deep search neither can the Avast, its just upon startup when I try to open a file/folder/explorer. that and I can't get my darn explorer off of the www.search.com as its homepage, even after a reset etc, keeps going there after a restart/reboot.

So to all the brains out there, please help and old se4 vet whos down on his luck http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

I can't find anything on Symantec., so I can't help you there. Sorry. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

But about that search.com thing:

Have you tried to change your home page address on Internet Options screen yet?

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

Thanks, and yeah, the search thing, its actually www.searchv.com, really annoying, I've reset the internet options and homepage etc many times. Still comes up as the default homepage. annoying. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

The only mention I can find of the Win32:Adware virus is on the Avast homepage under their 'VPS history' , whatever that is, it lists the virus as part of an update for Oct 13th, which includes viruses like the Win32:BatRat virus, whatever that is. Kinda wishing for the virus free days of my 300 baud modem right now....

[ October 15, 2003, 00:05: Message edited by: Deathstalker ]

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

This link might help. It sounds like your problem.

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

What OS are you running. I know that in XP you have to disable the back up function in order to get a clean sweep of your system if a virus has infected your system.

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

Thanks all guys, Alpha, this does indeed seem to be the main problem. I am assuming as the 'adware' is part of the name virus it is detecting this darn thing. Unfortunately all the help on your link page is 'greek' to me, I'm a very simple point and click kinda guy.

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

You have some spyware/adware that installed itself. You need to get a program like Ad-Aware to clean it up.

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

Posting while I was typing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

It actually is not a virus, which is why anti-virus programs can not do anything. It looks like a normal program to them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Ad-Aware (or an equivalent) is the solution, as you are probably well aware of by now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

Indeed, I've run spy-bot as well as ad-aware 6.0 with the new build. neither has removed this annoying bug. arrrggghhh. Upon each re-start of the computer they find lots of new adware appears on their 'found and removed' list. most of them containing the searchv name in it.

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

Did you make sure to get the latest updates for those programs? Try running any updater functions they have.

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

that should be illegal.

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

It is illegal... falls under the same Category as releasing viruses and such.

[ October 15, 2003, 00:48: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

As a Last ditch effort I've manually deleted the whole load of files, they are suddenly there again when I reboot, the thing that scares me the most is when Avast detected this thing within my system restore drive. I've got one of those dells where the system restore is a seperate part of the hard drive, untouchable supposidly. So now even a full format/restore probally won't get rid of this. Don't even know how the damnable thing got on their in the first place.

Last resort, emailed the support page of the searchv people telling them my problem and asking to please get the thing off my hard drive. Doubt they'll even respond much less help out.

Sigh, ah well, guess I've got a new homepage for life.

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

I reccommend saving all your important data to CDs and then doing a low level format of your entire drive.

Reinstall windows from CD and then all your programs & data.

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

Thanks guys for all the help, I've talked it over with my wife and if all thats going to happen is an annoying homepage then were just going to learn to live with it for now. It took enough time to format/restore the Last time, and we only have the windows that came with the system, which is for the system restore that is part of the hard drive. If things get wonkier though I might just have to attach giant magnets to the side of the computer and then borrow a Version of windozzz from a friend http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

YOu can also try
http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/cws/

[ October 15, 2003, 03:45: Message edited by: Andres ]

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

threaten to sue.

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

Try this www.pestpatrol.com They have one of the best spyware - adware killing programs out. JUST be very careful what you ok to delete. Files obtained via Kazaa and other P2P programs often have embedded spyware in them and this program will detect it and recommend it be deleted.

You have a Dell, well now its time to see if Dell will live up to its own hype and support your customer needs. (Not holding my breath for Dell's customer service is utter crap just like HP's.)

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

The problem with the "system restore" partitions are they are now getting smarter and are storing your system modifications on them too.
ie. You install some hardware or software successfully - then it will copy this change to the "system restore" partition.
Great if your operating system dies, you can restore it back with your software changes, but bad in this case, where it has copied the program you don't want too.

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

well i finally went down with the virus. Happened Sat night at about 1.30 am. I was in a conversation with Fyron on irc when it happened. I have all my important stuff backed up on cd So the damage is not bad at all. Just have to reinstall the OS and all software. So I most likely will not be around after work too much until I am up and running again.

I keep up with all patches and signature files... This one was not detected. I sent the files to CA to be analyzed.

Re: OT: HELP!! Virus??
 

ok will be offline for games until friday... will be able to attend the chat tomorrow with the work pc.