My Computer has a Virus

stona said:

Did you get it sorted. I've just removed this from my daughters computer manually. It is a b*stard to get rid of as it blocks just about everything on your machine,including IE,which is tough if it is the only browser you have.I managed quickly,after start up, to get into task manager before it stopped me and then stop it! Look for "random letters"sysguard.exe. The random letters obviously vary as it tries to hide. After that I was able to delete the little bugger.I wasn't quite sure what was what so I ran Malware bytes which did the trick!
Steve

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Same situation with me. My son got this threat because he is fond of movies and downloaded a movie from illegal source. The movie asked to download a codec and once he did that, the computer started crying with fake popups, alerts, warning message! Oh my god! I've not seen such scary thing before. I had to spend a few dollars to get rid of antivirus live. Here is the link I used to ****LINK REMOVED****

I've highly advised my son not to do this **** again

Andrew, welcome aboard! And be very careful about paying out money to get rid of something like this. A lot of virus guys will flood the net with a nasty virus like yours, and then magnanimously post another website with the miracle cure for only $___.99. They didn't do anything to help your system, they know you're willing to pay to get it removed (when they update the virus six months from now), and they have your credit card info. Hopefully you took the PC someplace to get it cleaned up!

Download the free program "Autoruns" (AutoRuns - Download). If you get a virus, boot your computer into safe-mode (usually hitting the F8 key on startup...various manufacturers use different keys, though, so check yours), run the Autoruns. Its a very impressive looking list of drivers and programs that run when your computer starts (thus the name). What you're looking for is anything with a random letter-number name, like e391bv2.exe. Check it online if you're not sure (I just made that one up). Delete it from there, and when you reboot, update your antivirus program and run it on full-scan mode. Several times. That has always gotten rid of it for me, on home and work PCs.

andrew93 said:

Same situation with me. My son got this threat because he is fond of movies and downloaded a movie from illegal source. The movie asked to download a codec and once he did that, the computer started crying with fake popups, alerts, warning message! Oh my god! I've not seen such scary thing before. I had to spend a few dollars to get rid of antivirus live. Here is the link I used to Remove Antivirus Live

I've highly advised my son not to do this **** again

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A solution: Make a dual-boot with Linux (I suggest Linux-Mint, found here) and let your son download on that, using Linux as a quarantine system. Keep it isolated form your Windows-partitions. Let your son use VNC on WLinux to watch the movies. That way you won't be as vulnerable. Linux also provides in good anti window-virus software, so you can scan the files before putiing on you Windows partitions.

Part of the problem here is your son not reading about what he is downloading, most of the time if there is a virus in the file it is noted in the comments section of the website. I have avoid getting viruses by doing this and avoiding known signs of files that have viruses in them. If your son did this then the chances of getting a virus a minimised (as I have said I haven't gotten one despite downloading).

On top of that I would never pay for a repair from an online source. It is easy enough to do it yourself and if you can't take it to a shop because of the reasons already mentioned. Linux is another option.

Final option though drastic but in some cases it may be preferable is a hard drive reformat and full OS reinstall.