Have I done it?

Welcome to Major Geeks!

You mean MESSENGER PLUS! LIVE. This is the scurge of the internet. Tens of thousands of people have been infected by installing this program and not reading carefully.

• Click on Start, then Run ... type services.msc into the box that opens up, and press 'OK'.
• On the page that opens, scroll down to Client IP-IPX
• then right click the entry, select Properties and press Stop Service.
• When it shows that it is stopped, next please set the Start-up Type to 'Disabled'.
• Click OK until you get back to Windows.

• Next, run HJT, but instead of scanning, click on the None of the above, just start the program button at the bottom of the choices.
• At the lower right, click on the Config button
• Then click the Misc tools button
• Select Delete an NT Service
• Copy/pasteClient IP-IPX into the box that opens, and press OK
• If you receive any error messages just ignore them and continue.
• Now exit HJT

Is Sunbelt CounterSpy the free trial version from the READ ME? If so, uninstall it now as we are finished with it.

Also uninstall the below old versions of software:
J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 1
Make sure you reboot after uninstalling the above!

After reboot, now install the current version of Sun Java from: Sun Java Runtime Environment


I will post additional steps soon in a second message.

 

Now Run HijackThis and select the following lines but DO NOT CLICK FIX until you exit all browser sessions including the one you are reading in right now:

R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://www.google.co.uk/
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,SearchAssistant =
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,CustomizeSearch =
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Connection Wizard,ShellNext = http://vcl.vaio.sony.co.jp/eu/PforVAIO.htm
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar,LinksFolderName =
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {7E853D72-626A-48EC-A868-BA8D5E23E045} - (no file)
O4 - Startup: csrss.lnk = ?

After clicking Fix, exit HJT.
Boot into safe mode and use Windows Explorer to delete:
C:\Documents and Settings\julie\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\csrss.lnk

Now run Ccleaner

Now we need to Reset Web Settings:

1. If you have an Internet Explorer icon on your Desktop, goto step 2. If not, skip to step 3.
2. Now right click on your desktop Internet Explorer icon and select Properties. Then click the Programs tab and then click "Reset Web Settings". Now go back to the General tab and set your home page address to something useful like www.majorgeeks.com. Click Apply. Click Delete Cookies, Click Delete Files and select Delete all Offline content too, Click OK. When it finishes Click OK. Then skip step 3.
3. If you do not have an Internet Explorer icon on your Desktop, click Start, Control Panel (for some systems it may be Start, Settings, Control Panel), Internet Options, Programs tab and then click "Reset Web Settings". Now go back to the General tab and set your home page address to something useful like www.majorgeeks.com. Click Apply. Click Delete Cookies, Click Delete Files and select Delete all Offline content too, Click OK. When it finishes Click OK.

Note for IE 7 users: You need to select Internet Options then the Advanced tab and then Reset Internet Explorer Settings!

Now reboot in normal mode
Now Copy the bold text below to notepad. Save it as fixME.reg to your desktop. Be sure the "Save as" type is set to "all files" Once you have saved it double click it and allow it to merge with the registry.

Now attach the below new logs and tell me how the above steps went.

1. GetRunKey
2. ShowNew
3. HJT

Make sure you tell me how things are working now!

Reminder Note: Once we have determined you are malware free you will need to disable System Restore, reboot, and re-enable system restore per step 1 of the READ & RUN ME. This only applies to if using WinXP or WinMe.

 

No! This just happens in HijackThis sometimes. Don't worry about it.

Don't do that! csrss.exe running from the system32 folder is valid. csrss.lnk has nothing to do with that file.

Yes! That was the file that I asked you to delete. csrss.lnk is a shortcut file and that is all you needed to do was simply delete it and nothing else. This was a backup to fixing the O4 line in HJT which I assumed would fail.

How are things working?

Your logs are clean but you should consider removing SuperAntispyware and AVG Antispyware unless you are going to buy one of them. You already have Windows Defender installed (not the best antispyware program) and you don't want to have conflicts between these programs and the excess use of system resources will slow your PC down.

You can also use HJT to fix the below non-malware items which will help in PC performance too. These are unnecessary startups:
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [QuickTime Task] "C:\Program Files\QuickTime\qttask.exe" -atboottime
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SunJavaUpdateSched] "C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_01\bin\jusched.exe"

 

You're welcome!

If you are not having any other malware problems, it is time to do our final steps:

1. If we used Pocket Killbox during your cleanup, do the below
   • Run Pocket Killbox and select File, Cleanup, Delete All Backups
2. If we used ComboFix you can delete the ComboFix.exe file and associated C:\combofix.txt log that was created.
3. If we user SDFix you can delete all the SDFix related files and folders from your Desktop or whereever you installed it.
4. If we used VundoFix, you can delete the VundoFix.exe file and the C:\VundoFix Backups folder and C:\vundofix.txt log that was created.
5. If we had your run FixWareOut, you can delete the Fixwareout.exe file and the C:\fixwareout folder.
6. If we had you run Avenger, you can delete all files related to Avenger now.
7. If we had you download any registry patches like fixme.reg or fixWLK.reg (or any others), you can delete these files now.
8. You can delete the ShowNew.Zip and GetRunkey.Zip files and the files that you extracted from the ZIP files. You can also delete the C:\newfiles.txt and C:\runkeys.txt logs that were created
9. If you are running Windows XP or Windows ME, do the below:
   • go back to step 8 of the READ & RUN ME to Disable System Restore which will flush your Restore Points.
   • Then reboot and Enable System Restore to create a new clean Restore Point.
10. After doing the above, you should work thru the below link:
    • How to Protect yourself from malware!