I'm posting this on my laptop. Last night, I downloaded a file and it probably contained a virus, because i now have Antivirus 2009 and the red circle with a black X as well as the yellow triangle shape icon on the bottom-right toolbar. Would that be interlinked with the new problem I have? It takes FOREVER just to load up the blank desktop (only with the default Windows XP wallpaper). I tried doing the Ctrl+Shift+Delete, but the window does not show up so I can't "Run" windows.exe Is there another way to get it to show up? If not, would I be able to backup my files so that I can re-format my computer? Sorry if this has already been asked before. I've seen topics similar to my problem, but at least they have access to the task manager. HELP?

cherii, The problem is you have been had by one of the newer scare programs that have hit the market....antivirus 2008....it is a rogue antispyware program that makes you believe that you have a virus and other malady. You do it is that program... Spybot S&D can remove it when ran in "safe mode". When you enter safe mode it will stop the process from starting and return your other programs such as desktop back to your computer. Run spybot and it should clean it up for you. What you need to do is download spybot and load the self extracting icon to a cd. Then enter safe mode by restating your computer and toggling the F8 key before windows loads. In the start-up page select to start your computer in safe mode with CD rom support. Once the computer starts itself in safe mode then use the CD and install the spybot program . Run the program and it should find the bogus program and remove it from your system! While in safe mode if you prefer...you can save the data files of your choice and send them to a USB drive for safe keeping as well! It is the disadvantaged who habitually elect Democrats on the belief of personal change--- yet they remain disadvantaged.

Antivirus 2009 is not a virus, but it is considered to be malware - you're seeing the symptoms of aggressive tactics used by the makers of a rogue anti-spyware program that installs FAKED symptoms on your system in an attempt to get you to buy legitimate anti-malware software - if you don't download their software, scan your system, and then buy it, the symptoms stay there. If you DO buy it, the FAKED symptoms it installed disappear. The quality of the anti-malware software varies from okay to poor. You do not normally get this kind of thing from a download, but there are a lot of contaminated web sites that if you merely visit them will install the antivirus 2009 crap. Some of the efeects may not appear until after you have rebooted. ....... Try booting into Safe mode with networking. (Remove any bootable CDs or DVDs you have in drives, press F8 repeatedly while booting, don't hold the key down, when the boot choices menu appears, try Safe mode with networking.) If that doesn't work, try pressing F8 while booting again, and choose Last Known Good..... If that works, tell me what you can and cannot do. E.g. - shortcuts to things already on the desktop mostly work. - you may not be able to see your C and D drives in My Computer or Windows Explorer - there may be a lot of things missing from the window that pops up when you click on Start - e.g. All Programs, Run, Control Panel, etc. - Crtl-Alt-Del does not work, and when you right click on your taskbar lower right, Task Manager is greyed out ...... What you need to do is to find and download a program called Malwarebytes, and a program called SmitFraudFix. You can download them on another computer if you need to, copy them to a flash drive or burn them to a CD, then copy them onto the affected computer, but you need to be able to access the internet on the affected computer in order to update Malwarebytes. Typically, if you can use My Computer, or Windows Explorer, you can still see CD drives, and flash drives when they are plugged in, then you copy the programs to the Desktop. When you execute the downloads, they make a shortcut on the desktop. You boot into Safe mode with Networking, install Malwarebytes, then update it from the web, then, in Safe mode, you run a FULL scan of all drives. Have it remove everything it finds. If you run Malwarebytes again, it may find stuff but only in the system restore point locations - if that's all it finds, don't worry about that. I advise you to NOT turn off System Restore until you're sure you no longer have symptoms. According to experts, anything found in the restore points cannot infect your computer unless you deliberately load the restore point the malware is in. That will get rid of Antivirus 2009, but you will still have leftover symptoms you need to clean up by running SmitFraudFix, in Safe mode. Malwarebytes will get rid of the Antivirus 2009 for all users, but if you have more than one user, more than one user may have the leftover symptoms - run SmitFraudFix on each user with leftover symptoms. SmitFraudFix is continually updated, so make sure the version you get is the current newest one. It resets your Home page in IE to the default one the browser was originally set to, but that can easily be changed. Some anti-malware programs, e.g. AdAware 2008, detect SmitFraudFix.exe, the name of both the download and the program it makes when you execute the download, as malware, though it is not (there IS malware called Smit.Fraud). If you don't want SmitFraudFix.exe to be deleted or quaranteened, you need to add the name SmitFraudFix.exe or the folder they are in to an exclude or ignore list in the program that finds it to be malware.

"Spybot S&D can remove it when ran in "safe mode"." I've seen other posts that said Spybot does NOT get rid of this malware. Even if it does now, it probably will not fix the leftover symptoms left behind. AVG 8.x, at least in the past, does not get rid of this malware. DO NOT install Spybot just to get rid of this malware. I never install it.

These malware apps are horrible for misleading users in to splashing their cash on products that are a total scam. Don't fall for it. Any kind of pop-up or error message that directly tells you that you have a virus and to purchase a fix should be marked down as a red flag. Follow the advice above in regards to Malwarebytes and you should be able to get rid of it. I remember a similar thing happening to my old computer and it refused to be moved without a restore, but hopefully Bytes works for you. Good luck http://www.pcfixreview.com

I tried restarting in every mode...safe mode, safe mode w/ networking, safe mode with command prompt and last known good...but none of them worked. I have this program called RegRun and I used it to get rid of this virus I had before. Now, sometimes as my computer loads up (normally) a blue screen with Regrun 2007-2008 something something comes up and then it loads Windows XP startup with logins. For some reason, I can't get past the Regrun blue screen. I can't even ake it so that I load a CD or something before loading that up. So...I'm done for. I even left the cmputer on overnight in hopes for any changes, but nothing happened. So now it's not the problem of Malware Antivirus 2009, it's not being able to even startup.

I have seen several systems that have had one of these rougue anti-malware programs on them, but all of them could log onto Windows, crippled though it was. Your not being able to log on was probably caused by something else, quite possibly something you used or did to try to get rid of the malware. Registry repair programs are usually not of much help regarding malware, and some of them can do more harm than good. Assuming the subject system had Windows loaded on it from a regular Windows CD, you could try running a Repair-your-existing-Windows-installation procedure, what many call a Repair "install" , but I think it's more appropriate to call it a Repair Setup procedure, because what it does is run Setup again without deleting the contents of the partition Windows is on. Before you do that, it would be a good idea to check your hard drive to make sure there's nothing wrong with it. Check your hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostics. See the latter part of response 1 in this: http://www.computing.net/windows95/... (thanks to Dan Penny for this link:) Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm... If you don't have a floppy drive, you can get a CD image diagnostic utility from most hard drive manufacturer's web sites, but obviously you would need to make a burned CD, preferably a CD-R for best compatibilty, on another computer if you need to. If the hard drive itself tests okay, any data problems found can be fixed, one way or another. ...... An XP Repair Setup will (almost always) not harm your existing Windows installation, but it can only fix things Windows detects as wrong, and/or replace corrupted or missing Windows files that are on your original XP CD. You will need a Windows CD of the same version as the one of your Windows installation, and the Product Key, preferably the one that was used to install it, but it can be one for the same version as the one of your Windows installation. How to do an XP Repair Setup, step by step: http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win... ...... If that results in Windows at least loading, you can then run Malwarebytes and SmitFraudFix If your Windows CD does not have SP1 or SP2 updates included, and you updated to SP2, you may have to install SP2 again to get Windows working properly. SP1 updates or later is required for USB 2.0 and hard drives larger than 137gb (manufacturer's size; 128gb in Windows and most bioses). ...... You will need to re-register some Windows Update related files in order to get Windows Update (and Automatic Update) to work properly after having run a Repair Setup. If you don't do this, software will be able to be downloaded by Windows Update or Automatic Update but none of it will install. First method: Register the Wups2.dll file in Windows To register the Wups2.dll file in Windows, follow these steps: 1. Stop the Automatic Updates service. To do this, follow these steps: a. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK. b. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER: net stop wuauserv 2. Register the Wups2.dll file. To do this, follow these steps: a. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER: regsvr32 %windir%\system32\wups2.dll Note For a computer that is running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, type the following command, and then press ENTER: regsvr32 %windir%\syswow64\wups2.dll b. Click OK on each verification message that you receive. 3. Start the Automatic Updates service. To do this, type the following command at the command prompt, and then press ENTER: net start wuauserv 4. Exit the command prompt. To do this type exit, and then press ENTER. ...... Second method If that doesn't get Windows Update working properly, then do this..... Click Start, select Run and type: cmd , click on OK Then type the following lines, one at a time, pressing Enter after each one net.exe stop wuauserv regsvr32 wuapi.dll regsvr32 wuaueng.dll regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll regsvr32 wucltui.dll regsvr32 wups.dll regsvr32 wups2.dll regsvr32 wuweb.dll regsvr32 MSXML3.dll net.exe start wuauserv type: exit, or close the black Window, to return to Windows. ......... In any case, if you still can't get into Windows, you can connect the subject hard drive to another working computer and copy data off of it you don't want to lose before you re-load Windows from scratch. Just don't boot from the subject drive on the other computer. If it is IDE, connect it to a data cable and jumper it as slave on either primary or secondary IDE, or as master on secondary IDE.