So, my desktop at home is infected with a virus pretending to be the Windows Security Center. Not only does it pop up every three minutes telling me to install Spyware protection from the Windows Security Center with bad grammar, spelling, and general mis-use of words, but it also loves to open programs by itself, and fill my desktop with porn. I got it from a bad Facebook link, but I want to know how to get rid of it and Dell will not help without charging me $texas.


Will simply uninstalling and then reinstalling XP fix it, or are these things more complicated than that? It's really annoying, and it would be great if someone could give me some guidance. Thanks!

8/30/2008 5:13:50 PM

1.) spybot (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html)
2.) adaware free (http://lavasoft.com/single/trialpay.php)
3.) ccleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/download)
4.) avg free (http://free.avg.com/ww.download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition)
5.) ...
6.) profit

8/30/2008 5:16:22 PM

But how do I know if I got all of whatever it is? Trojans, etc...

I should use all of those, I'm guessing since you listed them all?

And I'm also guessing the re-install wouldn't work, then?

8/30/2008 5:24:10 PM

yes, i'd run each of those 4 progs (i'd recommend that for anyone, viruses or no)...odds are one of them will catch it

if they don't, then google it and see if there's something special you should do (i don't know, specifically, what your messages are saying)

if the progs don't work, and you still don't find anything via google, you can reformat and reinstall and that will certainly take care of it

8/30/2008 5:51:04 PM

It depends on the virus. I had a virus once that exploited a feature of the NT file system and stored some code in a data stream in the NTFS partition. The virus was not actually present in a file and formatting the partition and reinstalling Windows will not remove a virus of this type. After several tries at erasing and recreating the partition, formatting, and reinstalling Windows, the thing kept coming back. I eventually had to use one of those tools that repeatedly overwrite all the sectors on the disk to get rid of the virus.

The first thing to try is the tools mentioned above and also Autoruns (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx) This will list all of the files that the operating system and its features (Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer) load and run behind the scenes. Usually after you delete a virus, a service or browser helper, or shell extension will reinstall and run the virus again in the background.

If you can't manage to solove the problem using these tools (you might want to get some help from soneone with some experience in that), the next thing to try is see if the Dell computer has a recovery partition. Different Dell machines have different methods to access the recovery partition. When you turn on the computer it briefly shows "http://www.dell.com" on the screen. During this message you press a key combination (F10, Shift+F10, F12, or possibly something else, you'll have to search the internet to find out what it is for your machine) and it will start autorecovery (if it starts a system diagnostics utility you pressed the wrong key combination, turn it off and try again). The recovery will erase all your personal files, so back them up before trying this.

If you run the recovery and STILL have the virus, the I would recommend just getting a cheap replacement hard drive and installing from scratch. (Keep in mind that you will need to download drivers for most of the hardware in Dell machines, so keep those handy otherwise it'll be a pain to get it back up and running.) The software for destroying the data on a hard drive costs about as much as a new hard drive so it's hard to justify buying it for a single use.

8/30/2008 6:16:37 PM