Dialer Generic

Hello everyone. I've just joined this forum, and have to confess I am a complete muppet as far as all things computers are concerned, so I hope you will be able to help me.

I have Norton 2007 installed on my laptop, and for the past couple of days I have been getting the following High risk warning. It says - 'Dialer Generic, cannot be removed from an unsupported file.'

I have read the various threads on this threat,and the solutions suggested in them, which to be honest may as well be written in Japanese, but I do not want to try any of those suggestions unless they are not suitable for this.

I did contact Norton about it, as they have a facility where they can access your computer remotely and sort things out for you, but they charge nearly £70 for the privilege so would like to be able to sort it out myself if possible.

Is there a program which I could download which would get rid of this?

Also is it safe to use my computer, especially for banking etc?

I am quite bothered about this and would really appreciate some help, in words of one syllable please.

Thanks a lot.

 

Hi noddy1!
Welcome to MajorGeeks! It sounds like it would be a good idea for you to follow the instructions and links in the box below. It's possible that one of the following scans may get rid of it, but if we can see your logs, we can tell you for sure.
Thanks!
abri

 

Just to add a further bit of information, I downloaded the free version of Spyware Doctor, and did a full scan with that. The report from that said that there were no threats, so I don'r know if the Dialer Generic thingy is something that Norton only would pick up.

Thanks for any help

 

abri, hello and thanks a lot for replying.

Here's where the idiotic questions begin!

I have checked in Control panel as suggested and there are no untoward programs there.

It then says that I need to make sure that MSConfig is not being used to control StartUps. How would I know that?

 

Hi noddy!
If you have WinXP, the below instructions tell you how to see if you're in normal mode or not. Which operating system do you have?

• MSConfig Startup Mode
  Please go to Start > Run > type msconfig and click OK!
  Select the General tab and select Normal Startup.

Thenclick Apply and OK and reboot PC before continuing.​

Remain in this Normal Startup mode while your PC is being cleaned of malware.​

 

Hi again,

Am slowly working my way through all the various instructions on the 'Read and Run' page, but am starting to get confused.

Really sorry about this - I feel such an idiot because I'm sure it's fairly easy really, but I just don't know what I am doing.

I have downloaded CCleaner, made sure all files are seen etc and am downloaded GetRunKey and ShowNew.

When I click on the GetRunKey, Save, I get a page that says 'Save in' and Desktop is highlighted but in the instructions it says to put it in its own folder.

I really don't know what I am doing now.
AAaaaaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!

 

Hi noddy!
I'm not sure where you are with your computer skills, but there are several ways for us to proceed and to help you. I would like to try the below set of instructions first and if this works, good. If it doesn't, we can try another way. To begin with, it would be a good idea to make a folder and then you can put things in there. Do you have Windows XP? If so, and you don't know how to make a folder, you can make one in this way:

1) Right click on the Start button at the lower left-hand corner of your screen and then in the menu that opens up, left click on the word "Explorer". This will cause your Windows Explorer to open up.

2) Click on the minus sign next to Document and Settings to close some of the files so you can see what you are doing. Then go down under (C: )until you come to "Program Files". Click on it once to highlight it. It might open up some other files and folders, but just leave it highlighted.

3) Now go all the way to the top of the page you are on and over at the top left corner you'll see the words File Edit View etc.. Click on File and a dropdown menu will open up. Click on the word New. Another menu will open up. Click on the word "Folder". This will form a new Folder down under Program Files. You will find it at the bottom of the list on the right-side window and it will be called "New Folder"

4) Right click on "New Folder" and in the menu that opens up, click on Rename. This will form a rectangular box around the words "New Folder". Please rename this folder something like Tools. You can use this for the tools like Show New and Get Run Keys.

5) After you give it a new name, click somewhere outside of the rectangular box and it will record its new name.

6) Now go back to the instructions where you are trying to download "GetRunKeys".

When you click on the zip file for GetRunKeys you should have the choices "open with" or "save to disk". If you can, just click on "open with" and the choices will probably be WinZip or WinRar. Either one is fine. A window will open up with about 6 files in it. The first one will be highlighted and will only have .. for the name (2 dots). Leave this one highlighted and to to the top of this page and click on the button that says "extract to".
A menu will open up like Windows Explorer. Click on the plus sign next to C and then go down until you come to Program Files. Click on the + next to Program Files and then go down until you come to the new folder we made called "Tools". Click on this to highlight it. Then click on OK at the bottom of the screen. This will send all the files to your new Tools folder. Those files will have the names GetRunKeys.bat, Grep.exe, locate.com, ltime.exe and swreg.exe. We will come back to these later.

After you've done this with GetRunKeys, please do the same thing with ShowNew. You will have all the files then in the one folder called Tools. Anytime during the scans, when you need to store something, you can put it in this folder called Tools so you know where to find it.

I hope this helps.

abri

 

Hi again,

First can I apologise for being so dim with all this, and say a huge THANKYOU for taking the time to help. I really do appreciate it.

As for my computer knowledge, it's down there with the gnats somewhere! I know how to switch it on (clever aren't I ), do e-mails and a bit of browsing on the internet, but that's probably about it.

I have followed the instructions you have given so far - Start/Explore/Docs and Settings/Program Files.

I then get a list of files on the left hand side of the page, and on the right a warning saying 'These files are hidden. This folder contains files that keep your system working properly. You should not modify its contents.'

Is it still ok to carry on with the rest of your instructions?

 

The above which you wrote Start/Explore/Docs and Settings/ Program Files is not the right pathway but part of it is right. Please go to Start / Explore, like you did before. Then the Windows Explorer window will open up. After that I want you to use this pathway: