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I've just had a home PC since I got this house 8 or 9 weeks ago. It was free from my sons mom's from a former job. E-machines. Anyway, everything has been gong fine it has basic Windows and Outlook etc. Somehow I've opened myself up to Spyware stuff and unwanted popups. I think it started when I was looking for free virus protection. I do have a free McAffee site advisor and I used something called Micorsoft Defender that got rid of a couple of unwanted pop-ups. But there is still pop-ups saying I am infected with a backdoor virus that will enable someone to do malicious stuff to my computer. I am trying to avoid buying a program for 49-69 dollars becauseI don't have the money right now and since I got the computer for free trying to keep costs to a minimum. I know there are a lot of computer gurus on this site. Any thoughts would be appreiciated. Thanks.

Hey how about that 3 feet of snow in Denver? Wish I was right in the middle of it.

Merry Christmas all!!!

Hey Paul,

There are a few good free spyware cleaners out there and I would recommend that you run both of these:

Spybot S&D

Ad-Aware

Let me know if you have any problems getting them to work....also be sure to update the definitions before scanning....

Jeff

The unfortunate truth is there is no simple answer to your problems. Site advisor and Defender will (attempt) protection against spy/mal-ware but not viruses. Without a tool to find/remove viruses you are going to have a tough time getting your computer clean. Manual cleaning is time comsuming and requires extensive knowledge of Windows (registry editing, etc.) and the viruses themselves so you know where and what to look for. Here are some things you can do:
Apply all current patches from Micorsoft.
Stop using Internet Explorer for web browsing. Get Firefox.

This may help
http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/ActiveScan.htm


But this is more thorough - a step by step method

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/13616



If you manage to bring it back, spend an hour here

http://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?rh1dkyd2

Just so you know, with the Holidays here and perhaps competing for our free time; depending on the level of compromise, the entire cleaning and restoration could take a number of hours to complete.

Thanks Loco. I added the Spybot search and destroy and Spyware Dr.programs. It seemed to have gotten rid of the viruses but a security alert window keeps popping up. It says there is a virus/network worm. It's from Anti-virus golden which is a harmful site. I haven't been able to get rid of the pop-up. I feel okay though that most of the bad stuff is gone. I don't even know what spyware is. Thanks again for the tips and have a Great Holiday weekend. Paul

Thanks LJ for the tips. I tried to keep it simple so I just used the SpyDr stuff. You don't really appreciate the Data services people at work until you have to do it on your own at home

PES,
Start the computer in safe mode (press and hold F8 as soon as computer starts up, then hit "Safe Mode" choice) and run the spyware/virus programs again.

Thanks Dinqua. Did that and fixed 4 more problems and the pop-up is not showing up, but the little Antivirus Golden 3.4 icon is still at the bottom of the screen. I think I'll go clean the gutters, I know I can do that

Ok, get really bold - go to Start->Run-> type in msconfig and hit enter.
Click on the startup tab - uncheck the box for the Golden Antivirus stuff. Restart computer. Tada! Gone.

You do know you are dealing with a computer idiot here right? Do I get out of all programs and start the computer over befroe I do the start>run thing? And where do I type in the msconfig?

Okay okay..I found it. I did what you said but it asked me if I wanted to reconfigure to an ealrier date. I don't want to do that becuase of the the SpyDr. programs I added. I just realized by discussing this in the open lounge everyone knows I'm a computer challenged. (yeah likes it's a big secret.)

Don't worry about the earlier version stuff, just tell it to restart after the msconfig. You probably have it set to "automatically set restore point" (oww oww oww. now your head hurts dunit? )

Thanks for the help Dinqua. Everything is back to normal.