I Need Help With Possible Problems

I'm not sure you are having malware problems. Most problems with Windows Update are not due to malware. I may have to send you to the Software Forum but first we will check a couple things out.

First try running Microsoft Fixit

http://support.microsoft.com/fixit/

Click the Windows button and in step 2 select the Install of upgrade software or hardware option in the left column of the form. Then on the right side select Windows Update. Now in step 3 you will see possible fixes with the Run Now buttons to try. Try the appropriate solution. Reboot after running any fixes before attempting to see if they worked.

If that does not help, try the below.



Be patient while doing the below. The fixes can sometimes take quite awhile to run. Especially the permissions repairs. It may be best to kick it off and goto bed or do something else. It is better not to run anything while the repairs are going on.

Download Windows Repair by Tweaking.com and unzip the contents into a newly created folder on your desktop.

• Now run Repair_Windows.exe by double clicking on it ( if you are running Vista or Win 7, use right click and select Run As Administrator)
• Now select the Start Repairs tab.
• The click the Start button.
• Create a System Restore point if prompted.
• On the next screen, click the Unselect All button to first deselect all repairs.
• Now select the following repair options:
  • Reset Registry Permissions
  • Reset File Permissions
  • Register System Files
  • Repair WMI
  • Repair Windows Firewall
  • Remove Policies Set By Infections
  • Repair Winsock & DNS Cache
  • Repair Proxy Settings
  • Repair Windows Updates
  • Set Windows Services To Default Startup
• Now on the lower right side check the box to Restart/Shutdown System When Finished
• Then make sure the Restart System radio button is enabled.
• Shutdown any other programs that you are running now before continuing.
• Now click the Start button.
• Be patient while the tool repairs the selected items.
• It should reboot automatically when finished.

After reboot, test Windows Update again. If still not working, we will check to see if any malware is inteferring.

Please follow the instructions in the below link:

READ & RUN ME FIRST. Malware Removal Guide

 

You're welcome.

Just because you had 86 updates to install, it does not mean you had malware. It just means you had not been installing updates. However the fact that you do not have any protection installed could potentially be big trouble especially if you are not very careful about where you surf and what you download. If you use this PC for any online banking or other financial transactions, you are begging for trouble. It is not advisable to run without protection and it is a waste of our time to bother cleaning your PC if you are not going to properly protect it afterwards. Uninstalling other programs is a much better idea than uninstalling protection.

If you wish to check for malware, you need to run the READ & RUN ME FIRST and attach the requested logs.

 

All protection software can have a significant impact, but some less than others. Also depends on whether you use a full security suite or just an antivirus+antispyware. You could try the free Microsoft Security Essentials which is not as resource hungry as others but that comes at a price of not being as good too. But better than nothing. Note all protection software will have an impact at bootup especially when it also requires updates to download. This is normal and necessary.

Many people who say that there protection software is slowing them down a lot are really having the problem for reasons like below:

• Not enough memory to properly run their PC.
• Older slower micro processor styles that just do not have the horsepower to handle modern day applications.

 

Sorry to hear about your back. Hope you are doing better now.


I have to refer you back to what I posted in my first message to you which was

To properly continue with any support, we will need the logs from this process.

 

There is just a little bit of junk to remove.


Please download OTM by Old Timer and save it to your Desktop.

• Run OTM.exe by double clicking on it (Note: if using Vista, Win7 or Win8, don't double click, use right click and select Run As Administrator).
• Copy the lines from the below codebox to the clipboard by highlighting ALL of them and pressing CTRL + C
  (or, after highlighting, right-click and choose Copy): Do not include the word Code: which is just a title line of
  the code box

Code:

:Processes
explorer.exe
 
:Files
C:\Program Files\Conduit
C:\ProgramData\Conduit
C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Conduit
C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\temp\*.*
:Reg
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
"ConduitFloatingPlugin_nemfjadlboooiffmcelkafilagddogim"=-
[HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-823311705-3733584610-3011476573-1000\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\run]
"ConduitFloatingPlugin_nemfjadlboooiffmcelkafilagddogim"=-
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes]
"DefaultScope"="{E18CAA8A-CAA8-461C-A5C0-203B1ACC2506}"
"ShowSearchSuggestionsInAddressGlobal"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes]
"DefaultScope"="{E18CAA8A-CAA8-461C-A5C0-203B1ACC2506}"
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes\{1E55EA9D-1F16-4710-BDA4-6CDE192E7F7D}]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes\{97470E74-E80F-4AEE-86C4-599839A55C75}]
:Commands
[purity]
[EmptyTemp]
[start explorer]
[Reboot]

• Return to OTM, right click in the Paste List of Files/Folders to Move window (under the yellow bar
  ) and choose Paste.
• Now click the large http://forums.majorgeeks.com/chaslang/images/MoveIt!.png button.
• If OTM asks to reboot your computer, allow it to do so. The report should appear in Notepad after the reboot.
• Close OTM.

Now navigate to the C:\_OTM\MovedFiles folder ( assuming your Windows drive is C). This is where your log will be
saved in the form of Date and Time mmddyyyy_hhmmss.log. Just look for the most recent .log file. Attach
this log file to your next message.

Now please download Junkware Removal Tool to your desktop.

• Shut down your protection software now to avoid potential conflicts.
• Run the tool by double-clicking it. If you are using Windows Vista or Seven, right-mouse click it and select Run as Administrator.
• The tool will open and start scanning your system.
• Note: That JRT may reset your home page to a google default so you will need to restore your home page setting if this happens.
• Please be patient as this can take a while to complete depending on your system's specifications.
• On completion, a log (JRT.txt) is saved to your desktop and will automatically open.
• Attach JRT.txt to your next message.

Now run the C:\MGtools\GetLogs.bat file by double clicking on it (Note: if using Vista, Win7 or Win8, don't double click, use right click and select Run As Administrator).

Then attach the below logs:

• the C:\_OTM\MovedFiles log
• the JRT.TXTlog
• C:\MGlogs.zip

Make sure you tell me how things are working now!

NOTE: Your PC could use another 2 GB of memory to help improve performance.

 

No.

Try the below:

• Click the Customize and Control Google Chrome button ( the 3 parallel lines down below the X button used to close the window ).
• Then on the pop down form select Settings.
• Now under the Search heading, click the Manage Search Engines button
  • Look in here for anything related to Conduit and select it and delete it by clicking the X button to the far right side.
  • Make sure that you look in both the Default Search Engines and Other Search Engines areas and delete any Conduit junk.
  • Select the default search engine you want ( like Google ) and click the Make Default button.
  • When finished, click the Done button
• Now back on the Settings page to the top left you should see an Extensions selection, click on it to bring up the installed extensions.
• Look for any undesired extension ( like Conduit or anything else you did not install ) and if found, click the Trash Can icon to delete the extension.
• Now close the Extensions/Setting tab to get back to normal view
• Exit Chrome and reopen.
• Are you still having a problem with Conduit?

 

Sometimes the easiest thing to do is uninstall Chrome when it gets infected like this. So let's do the below:

• Backup your Chrome bookmarks
• Uninstall Chrome and then reboot your PC
• After reboot, delete the below folders to finish removing junk that may be hiding there

C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome
C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome

• Now download and reinstall Chrome from here >>. Chrome
• Restore your bookmarks and then see how it is working.

 

You're welcome.

Conduit is just a junk search engine/adware. It does not steal passwords. So you should be good to go after doing the below.


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

1. We recommend you keep Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for scanning/removal of malware.
2. Renable your Disk Emulation software with Defogger if you had disabled it in step 4 of the READ & RUN ME.
3. Go to add/remove programs and uninstall HijackThis. If you don't see it or it will not uninstall, don't worry about it. Just move on to the next step.
4. If running Vista, Win 7 or Win 8, 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. Now goto the C:\MGtools folder and find the MGclean.bat file. Double click ( if running Vista, Win7, or Win 8 Right Click and Run As Administrator ) on this file to run this cleanup program that will remove files and folders related to MGtools and some other items from our cleaning procedures.
6. Any other miscellaneous tools we may have had you install or download can be uninstalled and deleted.
7. If you are running Win 8, Win 7, Vista, Windows XP or Windows ME, do the below to flush restore points:
   • Refer to the instructions for your WIndows version in this link: Disable And Enable System Restore​
   • What we want you to do is to first disable System Restore to flush restore points some of which could be infected.
   • Then we want you to Enable System Restore to create a new clean Restore Point.
8. After doing the above, you should work thru the below link:
   • How to Protect yourself from malware!

 

Are you talking about in Chrome? If yes, please do what I requested in message # 16.

Typically this has not been a malware problem. We have seen people having problems with this with address redirection software that Dell and a few others have installed.