HELP! Computer gone mad!

[Admiral Squish]

Alright, I'm not honestly sure how this happened. I've let my mom use my computer on two or three occasions while hers is in the shop. Nothing serious, she's been surfing ancestry.com and yahoo. But apparently, her touch is the black death of computers.

Yesterday, there was no real problem. It was a bit slower than usual, but I ran a virus scan with Avast and it seemed to clear up. Now, I turn my computer on and put in the password, and it takes me to some bizarre pre-desktop limbo. A message appears telling me that I have made unauthorized changes to windows. It gives me the options of learning more about it online, or closing. If I close, it takes me back to the password screen. I 'learn more online' and it takes me to a page that looks a lot like Microsoft's site. The page is titled 'Gentuine Microsoft Software'. It's got a progress wheel in the middle of the page and tells me that Windows Validation is in progress, and not to navigate away from this page. It does let me open up a new tab, though, and navigate normally from there. Which is, coincidentally, where I'm typing this from. The page is apparently not presenting identification, and it doesn't seem to be actually completing it's validation. It's also giving me cookies, which might be part of the validation process, but the cynic in me is saying this is probably some sort of elaborate virus.

Needless to say, I'm a little freaked out. If there's any computer dudes in the playground now, I need advice, and quick!

[Juggling Goth]

When my computer caught various diseases, I needed more than one product to sort it out. Have you tried something like Malwarebytes on top of your antivirus?

[Brother Oni]

Sounds like you've got some sort of malware that's inserted into your startup sequence.

As Juggling Goth said, try a dedicated anti-malware package rather than just Avast.

The alternative is to mess about with msconfig to disable and track it down, but I don't recommend this if you're not sure of what you're doing.


Edit: A suggestion for when your mother next wants to use the computer - set up a user account with limited rights especially for her. Give it no access rights to installing software or making registry/startup changes and with an up to date Avast working, it should stop any further mishaps.

[Remmirath]

Well, if you haven't solved this already...

My advice would be to boot into safe mode and run something like MalwareBytes (that's the one I usually use for such things, but I'm sure there are others that would work out there). The safe mode part should keep the malware from doing any damage during the time it takes to scan, or at least minimise the damage.

What version of Windows are you running, anyhow? I've certainly never seen that happen with XP or under, but if you can't turn up any malware even after scanning with a few different programs (and it doesn't appear to be causing any other damage) it could be a legitimate Windows oddity/malfunction instead. It does sound more like malware, though, so I'd still be a bit suspicious even if you don't turn anything up.

[The_Ditto]

Edit: A suggestion for when your mother next wants to use the computer - set up a user account with limited rights especially for her. Give it no access rights to installing software or making registry/startup changes and with an up to date Avast working, it should stop any further mishaps.

^^^
This ... is a MUST ..

Most likely, she picked something up on one of those ancestry sites .. (those types of sites are actually quite bad for malware c**p ...)

Once you get it fixed (good luck, not easy .. but easiest with a seperate boot disk) .. get a friend to make you a boot CD or something on a similar version of windows with some of the "basics":
- anti-virus scanner
- HiJack This

Once fixed, install
- Spybot + TeaTimer

That Teatimer is awesome at stopping unwanted registry entries ..

[Irbis]

Erm... Boot discs? Safe modes? Why? :smallconfused:

The simplest solution is to download startup antivirus, burn it on disc, start your PC from it, there, no matter what you caught it will not start earlier than it so you can clean your Windows and bury your worries.

Oh, advice for the future, get rid of XP, it's so archaic no antivirus will keep it safe. Grab Vista/7 instead, or at least keep your system patched.

[Siosilvar]

Oh, advice for the future, get rid of XP, it's so archaic no antivirus will keep it safe.

I'll second that one. I haven't kept an installed antivirus around for about a year now (I do run Malwarebytes and a few others my uncle gave me occasionally) and my XP machine has been clean as a whistle.

...that's not what you meant, was it.

[Irbis]

I'll second that one. I haven't kept an installed antivirus around for about a year now (I do run Malwarebytes and a few others my uncle gave me occasionally) and my XP machine has been clean as a whistle.

[shrug] Depends on the way you use it. I used XP for years, too, and only had serious infection twice, despite no antivirus, and only thanks to the stupidity of other home users.

...Still, what you just said is like: "I run through streets on red lights all the time, so it must be safe!". That proves nothing, except that nothing hit you yet. And now, running XP is like running through streets with your eyes closed, thanks to patching/support stopping, and drivers being worse and worse.

[ben-zayb]

Might i suggest another option? Try booting in "safe mode with command prompt", then type "%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe" at the command prompt. This will open up the System Restore interface where you can revert your PC to its most recent functional state.

Caveat: This effectively removes any corrupted data, regardless of whether said data files are personally important to you or not.

Erm... Boot discs? Safe modes? Why? :smallconfused:
The simplest solution is to download startup antivirus, burn it on disc, start your PC from it, there, no matter what you caught it will not start earlier than it so you can clean your Windows and bury your worries.

Why? Because not every solution works 100% of the time. Being open to more options is actually better. Besides, I think the previous replies and my suggestion require far less effort (and available resource) than the ones you proposed.


Oh, advice for the future, get rid of XP, it's so archaic no antivirus will keep it safe. Grab Vista/7 instead, or at least keep your system patched.
Except that it kind of defeats the purpose. Like saying, "Hey, i can't solve this chess puzzle, mind helping me out?", with me replying, "Yeah, let's play starcraft!"
While i'd totally go for the second option, something just doesn't feel right about that. Just sayin' :smallwink:

[Spartacus]

Might I suggest a boot-time scan, if you can get to a point to initiate such a thing?