Trojan.Win32.Genome.fwob / Windows XP

Greetings, and thanks in advance to you all for your time and awesomeness. I'll thank you at the end, too, but I just wanted to say that upfront, because regardless of how this turns out, like if my computer ends up melting from oldness and neglect, I just want you to know that I'm grateful that this option even exists in the first place.

• Windows XP 32-bit
• My computer slowed beyond its usual slowness, about October-? It's hard to remember because the changes were gradual and subtle, and with an old computer, nothing seems that weird. Firefox got slower and slower (also not that weird) and it was making me crazy.
• I think it all started when I noticed that even though I had uninstalled AVG and its toolbar, there were (ARE) still a lot of files that I could not remove, temp files and .dll files, that I thought were causing the problems. That's why I was trying to do anything possible to remove them, notably the SlimCleaner shred, which never, ever worked on the AVG files.
• I started downloading all kinds of cleaners and tools, MWB, Hitman Pro, CCleaner, Rogue Killer, RevoUninstaller, and SlimCleaner.
• I really liked SlimCleaner (ironically, that's what the Trojan appears to have been attached to), but probably went a little crazy with the cleaning. 'Over-enthusiastic registry key purging' is what I'll call it.
• Now, my computer has gone crazy, helpctr.exe can't be found so I couldn't open System info, I changed the startup items, so now I get what seems to be a fake System Configuration Utility message (at the end, the checkbox says, "Don't show this message...when Windows start." No 's' at the end of 'start'. Good one, guys.), and I have to battle to get on the internet, switching between the wireless card and a fob thingy, and using my phone as a hotspot.

Speaking of internet, I couldn't get on at the time of the MWB updates, so I did the steps in this order:
1. RK
2. MWB (w/o updates)
3. TDSS
4. Hitman
5. MWB (updated; and same results as first scan)
6. MGTools



Attached are my files.

Standing by...
Camille

 

Excellent! Thanks.

Here are the files.

 

oooh, hang on. I forgot to switch to normal startup.

I'll change the start-up mode and then re-run the scans.

Be right back.

 

Okay, re-run.

 

Hai.

Here 'tis.

 

Voila

 

uh oh. I think I have to take a nap before work. I slept somewhat before but I stayed up late/woke up early because I really didn't want to miss you. But I'm like a zombie right now and have to go back to sleep for a couple of hours.

Maybe we have pretty different schedules. I generally work from 10-6 CST, Mon-Fri. hmm. Well, I guess just let me know what happens now. Do you guys swap cases sometimes for logistical purposes, or do you and I just write each other a message once a day until things are resolved? It seems like that could span a lot of days, though. My freelance stuff is all on my computer that has the issues. ugh.

I'm so bummed. I so don't want to bring my computer to a place. Not just because of the money, but because I don't want a stranger fishing around in my computer, doing random things. I'm not going to learn anything if my computer's at the shop and I'm at home and not involved in the process on any level.

oh i'm going to cry. Please tell me what happens next.

Thank you for your help, Kestrel 13.

 

Hi,

Here are the things that were happening:

• slow boot/response in general. long program load times, even if nothing else is open
• helpctr.exe won't load--Windows can't find it
• moved from default wireless to another network in the area (an HP laserjet printer that I've never seen in the list of avail networks before. ??) and have to fight to get back on, and sometimes can't. this has never happened before and is freaky
• the sound disappeared for a while, and now I can't remember how I got it back. all this troubleshooting started last Saturday. I've read and done a lot of things, but didn't start taking notes or screen shots till Tuesday or so.
• that fake trojan file was also on my macbook, which shares the wifi (but has like 1/15 of my stuff). I read a bunch of stuff and then put Avast on the mac, and used bitdefender, which deleted the file without asking me what I wanted to do with it. I know (now) that macs can't be harmed by .exe files, but it, too, is acting slow and weird at times

That's all I can remember for the moment.

I ran the Check Disk tool, once for each option (Automatically fix... and Scan for and attempt recovery...), and things don't seem that different.