Overrun with spyware

[Madoublet98]

well i now have a ton of spyware on my computer and removal programs arent working. what should i do? should i just wipe my whole hard drive and if so, how? if not, whats the best way to get rid of it. its making my coputer extremely slow andn very very hard to use, freezing quite often. any ideas?

 

[dyarwood]

What have you run so far? Have you got a HiJackThis log?

 

[jrbarnett]

Take a look at faq760-4866 and follow the steps in it.
If your PC runs WinXP or Me you must disable system restore before running the spyware cleaner and antivirus software.

Failing that, as dyarwood suggests, run HijackThis and analyse the logfile with faq760-4897.

John

 

[Mekkins]

Sounds like you have the VX2.BetterInternet Bundle installed. I just wrote an FAQ on it's removal but I'm not sure if it's available to view yet. Here's the short version on how to remove it:

Open regedit and navigate to HKLM\Software\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify. See if there is a key beneath Notify called Guardian or GuardianRHRFQ; something like that. If there is, click on the Guardian key and look at the DllName value for the name of the file causing the trouble. You will have to boot to a DOS boot floppy or, if you have an NTFS file system, to the OS CD and go into Recovery Console. Navigate to Winnt\System32 and delete the file. If it won't let you delete, use the attrib command to remove the read-only, hidden, and system attributes and then delete.

Reboot and run Ad-Aware to clean up anything left over.

 

[jrbarnett]

Mekkins,

Yes it is: faq760-5206

John