can't get rid of avg search provider

[beezneez]

Hi,
I am trying to iron out a lot of problems on a friend's laptop running Vista Home Premium. I have installed Service packs 1 & 2 and tried to install WSE in place of AVG but I am afraid to delete AVG because it is embedded in IE as the only search provider. I have tried to install Google, Ask, Bing and Yahoo but the message comes up each time that there was a problem with the Search Providers information. When I opened IE for the first time AVG was the home page and there was one of those annoying little banners flashing at the bottom.........(You are a winner etc etc.) When I changed the home page to Google that disappeared but maybe that is the thing causing all the problem with the search providers. There were other weird things as well but now I am stuck. Incredimail is being used and I have read that this program is very prone to virus attack, is this correct? What should be my next step? If I download Firefox can I just delete IE and reinstall it later?
This is doing my head in!!

[TimW]

Welcome to Major Geeks!

Please read ALL of this message including the notes before doing anything. Note if you cannot save things in C:\ then just save them to your Desktop. Make sure that you have disable UAC and rebooted first if you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Please follow the instructions in the below link:

READ & RUN ME FIRST. Malware Removal Guide


and attach the requested logs when you finish these instructions.

• **** If something does not run, write down the info to explain to us later but keep on going. ****
• Do not assume that because one step does not work that they all will not. MGtools will frequently run even when all other tools will not.

• After completing the READ & RUN ME and attaching your logs, make sure that you tell us what problems still remain ( if any still do )!

Helpful Notes:

1. If you run into problems trying to run the READ & RUN ME or any of the scans in normal boot mode, you can run the steps in safe boot mode but make sure you tell us what you did later when you post logs. See the below if you do not know how to boot in safe mode:
   
   • Starting your computer in Safe mode
   
   
2. If you have problems downloading on the problem PC, download the tools and the manual updates for SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes ( links are given in the READ & RUN ME) onto another PC and then burn to a CD. Then copy them to the problem PC. You will have to skip getting updates if (and only if) your internet connection does not work. Yes you could use a flash drive too but flash drives are writeable and infections can spread to them.
3. If you cannot seem to login to an infected user account, try using a different user account (if you have one) in either normal or safe boot mode and running only SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes while logged into this other user account. Then reboot and see if you can log into the problem user account. If you can then run SUPERAntiSpyware, Malwarebytes, ComboFix and MGtools on the infected account as requested in the instructions.
4. To avoid additional delay in getting a response, it is strongly advised that after completing the READ & RUN ME you also read this sticky:
   
   • Don't Bump! It Only Hurts You!!!
   
   

Any additional post is a bump which will add more delay. Once you attach the logs, your thread will be in the work queue and as stated our system works the oldest threads FIRST.

[beezneez]

Thank you Tim, all good now

[TimW]

Good to know.