Malware cleaning procedure attempted, still have problems

[Aidara]

My Dell Inspiron 1420 (Vista SP 1) suddenly started running sluggishly after I woke it up out of hibernation yesterday. It won't open programs such as System Restore and MSWord, but it runs Firefox and CCleaner without a problem. Task Manager shows up in the tray but won't open as a window.

It also locks up when I try to shut it down, and I've had to force it manually. It boots up fine.

I've defragged recently, cleaned the registry, cleaned out temp files, run scans with SpyBot. Then I followed the instructions on the malware removal guide in this forum, and nothing seems to have changed. I wasn't able to run the SUPERAntiSpyware program (stalled on the "preparing to install" dialogue), but the other three programs seem to have worked fine. I've attached those logs here.

Also, I don't know if this is relevant, but two new processes try to run at every start-up: "apntex.exe" (which I understand to be related to the touchpad driver) and "services.exe".

Thank you for any advice you can give me!

[chaslang]

Welcome to Major Geeks!

Your logs are clean. Thus you are not having malware problems. I suggest that you post in the Software Forum. I do see a very large memory dump file that indicates you had a system crash:

2009-03-14 21:54 . 2009-03-14 21:56 310,825,039 --a------ c:\windows\MEMORY.DMP

We need to cleanup from running the READ & RUN ME:

1. We recommend you keep SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for scanning/removal of malware. Unless you purchase them, they provide no protection. They do not use any significant amount of resources ( except a little disk space ) until you run a scan.
2. If we had you use ComboFix, uninstall ComboFix (This uninstall will only work as written if you installed ComboFix on your Desktop like we requested.)
   • Click START then RUN and enter the below into the run box and then click OK. Note the quotes are required
   • "%userprofile%\Desktop\combofix" /u
     • Notes: The space between the combofix" and the /u, it must be there.
     • This will uninstall ComboFix and also reset hidden files and folders settings back to Windows defaults.
   • Delete the C:\combofix folder from combofix (if it exists)
3. Any other miscellaneous tools we may have had you install or download can be uninstalled and deleted.
4. If running Vista, it is time to make sure you have reenabled UAC by double clicking on the C:\MGtools\enableUAC.reg file and allowing it to be added to the registry.
5. Go to add/remove programs and uninstall HijackThis.
6. You can delete the C:\MGtools folder and the C:\MGtools.exe file. You can also delete the C:\MGlogs.zip
7. After you get your problems resolved, you should then work thru the below link:
   • How to Protect yourself from malware!

[Aidara]

Thank you very much, I'll try posting in the software forum!

[chaslang]

You're welcome and good luck.