apps won't run, no task manager, no regedit

The procedure that Lev gave you does not ask for a HijackThis log. Especially from a version of HJT that is 4 years out of date. Please complete 100% of the instructions that were given from start to end. And then attach only the logs that were requested. If you do not follow our instructions, we cannot help you.

 

If you can run HijackThis, some of the steps in the READ ME will be executable. Especially MGtools.exe which automatically runs a built-in correctly installed and renamed copy of HijackThis thus making it unnecessary for you to even have HijackThis on your own which is why we do not ask for a HijackThis log. Also the below is why we do not ask for HijackThis logs.

Most people are under the very mistaken misconception that HijackThis is a malware scanning and detection tool. It is not! HijackThis is simply a tool that is used to identify browser hijackers and in some cases it will show entries for some malware that is for instance running at startup. A HijackThis log shows the following:

• a running process list with no reference to good or bad
• it lists the contents of a selected group of registry keys that is an an extremely small subset of the tens of thousands of keys that may exist. Again no reference to good or bad.
• and some of the above keys that are shown may show some non-Microsoft system services that are running. Again with no reference to good or bad.

The decision on what is good or bad is left a person with significant Windows and malware cleaning experience.

HijackThis does not come close to showing all malware that could be hiding on a PC. Anyone who has an infected computer and is relying on HijackThis without the benefit of running other scans such as SUPERAntiSpyware, Spybot, ComboFix, BitDefender OnlineScan, PandaActiveScan, MGtools, etc. are more than likely still infected. In most cases, where there is one virus/trojan there are more.

The goal of this forum is to remove all malware, and this cannot be done properly by just seeing a HijackThis log.

 

Suggestion/Question: Can you run any of the steps in the READ ME if you boot into safe mode and attempt them? I realize that you may need to use your USB drive to get the tools but this will be necessary to help get us some logs from the READ ME. I'm not sure that a HijackThis log even from the new version will be that useful. Your problems may not even be malware related but we cannot tell without more details that would be given in the logs.

 

Would not help anyway as it is not a malware scanner.

Did you try to run some programs in safe boot mode? If not, give it a try to see if it helps.

 

Sorry to here that you had to reinstall. You should check out the below now:

How to Protect yourself from malware!