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After spending literally the entire day chasing my PC in circles seemingly as a dog and its own tail, and after FINALLY getting Vista Service Pack 1 to “take”, here is where I'm at ...

This garbage (??) is showing-up in my AVG Free AV scan:

File - Result/Infection - Path
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kernel32.dll - Change - C:\Windows\System32\kernel32.dll
wsock32.dll - Change - C:\Windows\System32\wsock32.dll
user32.dll - Change - C:\Windows\System32\user32.dll
shell.dll - Change - C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll
ntoskrnl.dll - Change - C:\Windows\System32\ntoskrnl.exe
hosts - Change - C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

“Stuff” is changing. Every time I attempt to correct one thing, something else happens, then I end-up spending gobs of time trying to "figure" the new change/problem out. Recently, (more so than USUAL!) things have been freezing/hanging (BADLY!). Ad-Aware quit working ("aawservice.exe" -“Stopped Working”, 3-14-2008, per my Vista “Performance & Reliability Monitor” - as did “ISUpdatemanager.exe", on 3-19-2008). I had to un-install Ad-Aware. My AVG updates are screwy now (sometimes it seems to update automatically, other times it won't, and sometimes it will let me manually update – and other times not!).

Troubles “seemed” to start around the time I downloaded some crap from NVIDIA (“nTune”), attempting to update drivers – but there has GOT to be something more than just that that is now wrong with this Dell that's not even three months old. It seems like the more I hang-around this (MG) website, and the more secure I ATTEMPT to make my new PC – the more problems I have. My "Vista Security Center" STILL tells me that “COMODO Firewall” (installed on the advice of someone here that shall remain un-named) is STILL reporting that it is ON – even though it was UN-installed a month ago!

I tried working through the Malware forum, and got stuck in the “Vista Cleaning” part – and had to give-up ... too many other problems presenting themselves.

Anybody willing to touch this one??? I am NO geek ... I just come here for help ...........

PS - I would "advise" that no one to go anywhere near the Dell "Support"(driver/updates) pages nor the NVIDIA driver/update pages - they allow you to download crap that may very well already be on your system. They (apparently) have no way to analyze your system for what is ON it - only what is SUPPOSED to (MAYBE!!!) be on it - and then allows you to download just about anything - whether it's compatible with your system - or NOT!!!

Oh, also, I went in (per instructions from the Malware Forum Sticky), and selected to "Show Hidden Files", and de-select a couple of boxes under that - I HAVE NO CLUE IF I SHOULD GO BACK AND CHANGE THAT OR NOT??? I HAVE "SUPERANTISPY" LIKE HALF-INSTALLED ON MY PC NOW ... I AM SO SICK AND TIRED OF NURSING MY PC ... I'D JUST LIKE TO USE IT SOMETIME YA KNOW, I MEAN, THAT'S WHY I BOUGHT THE DAMNED THING!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

OK...let's focus on one thing at a time. Firstly to get Comodo off your system.

Do you have the Vista SP1 update installed? If so you need to uninstall this and then we can work on uninstalling Comodo, as SP1 will not have installed correctly on your system if you have Comodo on it....version glitch there that Microsfot have picked up on.

 

Yikes! sounds like you got problems... But if you were in the malware section, you need to complete that before anything else can be done.

The folks in the malware section are very good, get the all clear from them, and then we can work on your system.

E

 

Yes, Service Pack 1 finally installed. I "think" (?) the Vista Security Center is falsely reporting the COMODO FW - it doesn't show-up in a Belarc System Analysis/Report.

So you're sure I should uninstall Service Pack 1? I think that's going to take a lot of time, and I've been at this literally for about 12 hours already ...

 

Belarc is very reliable - know the guy who put that together personally.

So let's assume Comodo is a false positive, and also I am assuming you are running the regular Vista firewall now.

I think you should take a look at this malware as a first starting point as Fred said. You need to work through this link Read & RUN ME FIRST Before Asking for Support
and if you are still experiencing issues then post up the logs as requested in a new thread in the Malware Forum. I note you have already tried this and ran in to some issues with the Vista instructions. Again I would urge you to start a thread in Malware and state what those issues with the Vista instructions were. The Authorized Malware Fighters in there are awesome and will help you work through any issues with the intructions and the malware the logs might show so that your computer is back up and running as it should.

The Malware Forum is a first come-first served basis, so please be patient with them. They are very busy and will help as soon as possible. No bumping threads as this just send you to the bottom of the heap again.

Good luck!

 

Thanks, I'll try that again - and yes, I am sticking as "close to home" as much as possible - using the Vista FW, even though I don't like the fact that it won't pass (I can't seem to get it to configure for,) the grc.com (outbound) "Leak Test".

Thanks again - I'm gonna try to start this tonight, but I'm just about at my wits end for now - exhausted ...

 

Closing this thread as it is now being worked on in Malware Forum