Dealing with the aftermath of a nasty virus

[CU Tiger]

SO my wife managed to get this combo virus deal.
It was the fake windows security and the all web pages blocked and the all .exe blocked rolled into one.

Before I knew this was a popular issue, I tried fixing myself.
I have ran full scans with MSE, Malwarebytes, spybot search and destroy, and fimally combo fix.

Early on every scan turned up multiple issues and removed them successfully, but after a reboot and re run I could never get a clean bill of health from all. Finally I tried combofix and it seemed to wipe out the remaining remnants, only now I have icones on her desktop for Computer, Network, COntrol Panel, My Files, and I can not delete them.
I can drag to the recycly bin and nothing changes, I can delete and same, and even right click desktop, personalize, disable themes changing icons and uncheck icons, then apply then ok and they remain.

any other ideas?
ALso is there another good program to just scan and say no issues found?

[MizzouRah]

Your best bet with a bad virus/spyware attack like this one is to backup your data and reload the OS clean.

[CU Tiger]

unfortunately dont ahve an OS disk....the laptop didnt come with any recovery disk and we never created one.

SHe uses this computer 99.9% ofn the time to only run some embroidery programs and always ahs her ipad nearby for searching etc.

[Lathum]

I had the same thing last week. I used Malwarebytes anti malware and was able to get rid of it. I then was able to run my McAfee which cleaned up the rest, haven't had an issue since. There were some helpful websites about the virus if you search google

[MizzouRah]

unfortunately dont ahve an OS disk....the laptop didnt come with any recovery disk and we never created one.

SHe uses this computer 99.9% ofn the time to only run some embroidery programs and always ahs her ipad nearby for searching etc.

What are you supposed to do if the HD dies?

[CU Tiger]

What are you supposed to do if the HD dies?


not to totally de rail the thread, but we keep an external that we back up pics and stuff to, other than that, guess we'd just get another hd or more probably a new laptop.

Will probably regret saying this, but my desktop is over 5 years old, doubt its been shut down more than a dozen times in that span...been through dozens of laptops with the old biz, and the wife has her 3rd...we've never had a hard drive crash.

one day i guess i will learn and rue he day, blah blah blah

[Matthean]

unfortunately dont ahve an OS disk....the laptop didnt come with any recovery disk and we never created one.

SHe uses this computer 99.9% ofn the time to only run some embroidery programs and always ahs her ipad nearby for searching etc.

I have done PC restores and never needed a disk for it.

[MizzouRah]

not to totally de rail the thread, but we keep an external that we back up pics and stuff to, other than that, guess we'd just get another hd or more probably a new laptop.

Will probably regret saying this, but my desktop is over 5 years old, doubt its been shut down more than a dozen times in that span...been through dozens of laptops with the old biz, and the wife has her 3rd...we've never had a hard drive crash.

one day i guess i will learn and rue he day, blah blah blah

Ok, I assumed it was a laptop you were talking about. You should still be able to get an OS cd for it from the manufacturer. :)

Anyway, did you try www.superantispyware.com (http://www.superantispyware.com) ?

Other than that, you could try to delete the profile and have it create a new one.

[CU Tiger]

At this point I am pretty confident the virus has been eradicated...I just cant get the icons off the desktop that apparently combofix put there.

fwiw it is a laptop, and asus doesnt offer a recover disk according to their customer service guy, I can just create my own back up...

[Autumn]

At this point I am pretty confident the virus has been eradicated...I just cant get the icons off the desktop that apparently combofix put there.


I think there's a Windows setting that will make it so you can't delete the "system" icons. I'm not sure where it is, but sounds like maybe that got switched on.

[MizzouRah]

Go to a command prompt (start, type cmd then hit enter)

Navigate to your desktop folder and once there type dir to see the list of stuff on your desktop.

Type del xxxx.xxx (where xxxx.xxx is the name of the icon you are trying to remove)

Let me know if you need a more through post of instructions.