Did I hose my laptop?

Discussion in 'Malware Help (A Specialist Will Reply)' started by Hopeless2007, Aug 8, 2007.

  1. Hopeless2007

    Hopeless2007 Private E-2

    Hi everyone. I hope you can help me.

    I'm new to all of this malware stuff, so bear with me, please.

    I think I have done something wrong. I recently took up my cable company on an offer for cable internet and a free subscription to AOL.

    I installed the AOL safety and security suite, as it seemed like a good idea to me.

    Immediately, the AOL spyware scanner found a type of spyware called estalive. The problem was, every time I blocked it, it came back.

    I did some pretty shoddy research on the matter (I really wish I had found this site first), and came by a post on another site that said a program called prevx and a registry scanner would solve my problems, so I downloaded, installed, and ran the prevx program. Then I downloaded and ran a registry scanner called TweakNow RegCleaner STD.

    I'm not sure which one did it, but I think one of those programs hosed my computer maybe I should have just let estalive do its thing.... :( . It still boots normally, and for a while, most programs work great. Over a short amount of time, though, the system begins to work extremely slowly (particularly in Internet Explorer), and then finally hangs up and becomes non-responsive.

    My friend says the registry cleaner did it. Perhaps estalive is still in there wreaking havok. I don't know, and as my screen name implies, I'm hopeless.

    Somebody please point me in the right direction because I am nearly at the point where I will just format the hard drive and do a clean re-install.....
     
    Hopeless2007, Aug 8, 2007
    #1
  2. chaslang

    chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

    Welcome to Major Geeks!

    First let me begin with a couple of questions.
    1. Did you make a back of your registry before using the registry cleaner? If so, restore it and see what happens.
    2. If you are using Windows ME, Windows XP, or Windows Vista, you can use System Restore to go back to point in time before using Prevx and TweakNow. Have you tried this?
    Now a comment:
    If you really want to improve things on your PC, uninstall AOL asap and never use it again it is not worth using even for the free mediocre protection. There are much better free alternatives that will not slow your PC down.


    If you wish to properly check your PC for malware, follow the below steps.

    Please follow our standard cleaning procedures which are necessary for us to provide you support. Also there are steps included for installing, renaming, running, and posting HijackThis logs as attachments.
    • Run ALL the steps in this Sticky thread READ & RUN ME FIRST Before Asking for Support
    • Make sure you check version numbers and get all updates.
    • Very Important: Make sure you tell us the results from running the tutorial...was anything found? Were you unable to complete any of the scans?...Were you unable to download any of the tools?...Did you do the on-line scans as suggested? etc.
    • After doing ALL of the above you still have a problem make sure you have booted to normal mode and run the steps in the below link to properly use HijackThis and attach a log:
    Make sure you also rename HijackThis.exe as suggested in the procedures. Use analyse.exe for the new name. This is very important due to some new infections going around.​
    • When you return to make your next post, make sure you attach the following logs and that you have run these scans in the following order too:
      • CounterSpy - only for Windows XP, 2K, & NT users
      • AVG Antispyware log - ONLY IF NEEDED you were not able to run CounterSpy. - only for Windows XP, 2K, & NT users
      • Bitdefender - from step 6
      • Panda Scan - from step 6
      • runkeys.txt - the log from GetRunKey.bat
      • newfiles.txt - the log from ShowNew.bat
      • HijackThis
    NOTE: You can only attach 3 files in a single message so it will require that you use two messages to attach all of these logs!
     
    chaslang, Aug 8, 2007
    #2
  3. Hopeless2007

    Hopeless2007 Private E-2

    Thanks for the reply. :)

    I saw that topic at the top after I posted mine.

    Whew! I didn't know this malware stuff was such a big deal until I started searching the net about it ( I knew there were viruses and spyware, but I've never had a problem or need to do any searching on the topic).

    The system restore would probably do just what I need it to. Thanks for the suggestion! I restored my registry, but I'm not noticing any immediate differences. Perhaps after I reboot, it will be different. If not, system restore is my best bet, I think.

    And since even I (who knows nothing about this) do not like the AOL security stuff ( it pops up a new message that I have to exit out of everytime it updates - doesn't that defeat the purpose of automating the updates?), I think I'll try some of the programs listed in the read me topic at the top.

    Thanks again, and if I still have problems after the system restore, I'll be back!
     
    Hopeless2007, Aug 8, 2007
    #3
  4. chaslang

    chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

    Yes you should reboot to really know what the effect will be and if it does not help, try System Restore.

    Read the other stickies too. In particular the below one:


    How to Protect yourself from malware!
     
    chaslang, Aug 8, 2007
    #4

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