Virii and horrorshows.

[el Chi]

Today my computer's stumbled upon the HILARIOUS trick of restarting itself for no very good reason! Funny, innit? :hmph:

I tried to do a virus scan on my computer (I used an outdated version of Norton and an up-to-date version of AVG, both with the same results) but at some point, the computer restarted.
I've identified what's going on - sort of.
There are a number of folders that appear to be bastards, towards the end of my Program Files list: Ubisoft; Windows Media Player; and Valve. Somewhere in there, it seems there are some troublesome files that restart the computer when touched/threatened.

I can't run two programs from one of those folders at the same time, ie: Running Steam is fine, but then if I start WMP = crash, and vice versa. If I'm running Steam and try and play HL2, crash (which sucks balls).

I figured seeing as I don't use Far Cry anymore, I'd simply uninstall that, but nope. It crashed, presumably when it hit whatever nasty file is ****ing me about. Presumably a similar thing happens when the virus-scan catches it out.

A format looks likely, but I was just wondering whether any of you folks had ever seen this sort of thing before and thus had a suggestion?

 

[el Chi]

Oh for the love of God, please somebody suggest SOMETHING.

 

[JNightshade]

It's really hard to say. Do you have any antivirus software, for starters? I recommend the newest version of McAfee. It's done wonders for me.

 

[Reaktor4]

Nod32. Ccleaner. Spinrite.

 

[Glirk Dient]

reformat

 

[WhiteZero]

lol, too bad AVG only catches like 85% of viruses.
XD

 

[Revisedsoul]

housecall

and stop being a cheap bastard and buy a proper av

 

[bam23]

AVG broke my computer last time I used it. Can't say I'd recommend it.

 

[Adabiviak]

TrendMicro will do a free online scan.

 

[Laivasse]

Google and download a program called 'hijackthis'. It's only about 200kb. Run a registry scan and if you're well-versed enough to know which entries are dodgy and which aren't, delete the dud ones, since they probably point to stinky programs which start whenever your comp starts. Don't just delete random reg entries, you could screw yourself up. If you're not sure, google the names of the programs they point to or post a log on some techie forum (or on here...although I can't promise I'll be able to make head nor tail of it). You can achieve something similar to this by running msconfig, going to startup and turning off any naughty software.

Anyway that's just to stop any dodgy fishware from starting up. After doing this, restart in safe mode and do all your scanning from there. You might want to download some decent AV progs before you do any of this. I can't recommend any because all I use is AVG which is basically useless except to sometimes tell you "LOL UR INFECTED! BYE!"

You can do it the Chuck Norris way and crush all the suspect files by hand if you've got it in safe mode and no malicious software is running. Isolate the suspect files using searches by date, etc - you seem to have half an idea where they are anyhow. Also note that trojans and shitware like this almost always stick weird bits and bobs in your windows/system32 folder, so that's another good place to look to clean out an infection. Most legit exe and dll files in that folder will have a 'version' tab under properties, with some information saying Microsoft etc. Don't delete anything unless you're absolutely sure.