Thanks goombawaho & smah for your inputs !
I searched the Net , using Google for a solution and by pure luck, I stumbled on a right-on-the-neck fix .
It turned out to be a terrible malware : Rootkit.win32 , an extremely resistant one !!
I DL the the fix, followed the instruction and Voila` , everything is back to normal again .
The lesson learned : When you see the message like the one I showed in the screenshot , it's the big-bad Rootkit malware folks !!
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I just enclosed the instruction just in case anyone else got the same diaster !
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Download it here ->
Before saving it to Desktop, please rename it to something like 123.exe to stop malware from disabling it.
Now, please make sure no other programs are running, close all other windows and pause Kaspersky (right click the K icon and click pause protection > Choose the
option "resume manually" if still active) until after the scanning and removal process has taken place.
Please double click on the file you downloaded. Follow the onscreen prompts to start the scan.
Once the scanning process has started please DO NOT click on the Combofix window or attempt to use your computer as this can cause the scanning process to stall.
It may take a while to complete
scanning and this is normal.
You will be disconnected from the internet and your desktop icons/toolbars will disappear during scanning, do not worry, this is normal and it will be restored after
scanning has completed.
Combofix will create a logfile and display it after your computer has rebooted. Usually located in c:\combofix.txt .
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