malware clean-up has gone v. wrong!

Hi there,

I've been trying to fix my husband's computer, which runs on Windows Vista, using your malware removal guide. But now I'm unable to go any further... I have run 3 of the 5 scans your site recommends: SuperAntiSpyware, Malwarebyte and ComboFix. After saving the log for the ComboFix log, I attempted to move on to the next step only to discover that I could open nothing on the laptop; the message being displayed everytime I click on anything is:

Illegal operation attempted on a registry key that has been marked for deletion

when I click on "OK" the following message box appears:

The item you selected is unavailable. It might have been moved, renamed, or removed. Do you want to remove it from the list?

YES / NO

Please advise on how to proceed, (my computing knowledge at this level is v. limited).

I attach the 3 log scans for your info.

 

Thanks!

The re-booting seems to have done the trick. (I've had the most awful 90 minutes trying to figure out what to do next - don't laugh!)

The original problem: the husband tells me that about 2 weeks, (or there abouts), the internet on his machine became very, very sluggish and his homepage changed from Google to something else, (he can't remember to what). In any case, when I had a mess around with it last night, his IE was very slow.

I run the MS Live OneCare scan and it found 3 problems - 2 of which, it solved. I then run the malware scan tools, also from the Microsoft site and it found nothing. But IE was still pathetically slow, with lots of "not responding" hang-ups. I assumed that something had sneaked in pass the Norton...

Searched on the net, found your site and started the procedure for removal.

Prior to the actual scans I removed something that was similarly named to one of the items on your malware list (step 5 of the Read & Run Me First) - ALOT something - not the one on your list, but I uninstalled it because it had come into the computer about 2 1/2 wks ago. The first scan, the SuperAntiSpyware scan, found 3 dodgy items. The second scan, Malwarebytes, found nothing. So it may well be that the first scan sorted things out. Then... catastrophy!

Now, do you think I should continue with the remaining steps - RootRepeal and GTools, or shall I stop and revert all the settings back to where they should be, whilst the going is good?

Re. your instrunctions: Click Start, Run, and enter sfc /scannow and click OK: nothing appears to be happening - well, not quite, for a milli-second a mini-screen flashes on to the screen and then siltch. It's this how it is supposed to be?

Regards

 

Hi there

Pls. find attached the remaining 2 logs (for the malware removal procedure) for your info.

IE is now working much, much more speedily between web pages and I have run the Live OneCare scan and it has come up clean.

So - thanks very much for your practical (and calm in my panic) support.

There is one final thing that I need to sort out: IE is taking an average of 30 seconds to kick-in after launch as opposed to the usual 3-5 seconds. What do you think this might be indicative of, and what do you advise doing?

Many thanks