Topic: Someone please answer this....

[Centurus]

I've been working on an HP notebook that belongs to one of my mom's coworkers.  The laptop is a mess, loaded with spyware and viruses.  Now, I used Lavasoft Ad Aware to clean what I could find of the spyware, and used Avast Anti-Virus, since it was the only free anti virus I could find.

It's been doing a virus scan for almost 5 hours now, straight!!! 

Think I should just try and reformat the sucker?  It's looking like the virus scan will still be going on when I go to sleep tonight.

[Nemesis]

and used Avast Anti-Virus, since it was the only free anti virus I could find.

Did you check the security section of the free software list?  (link to website) (Link to discussion copy of list.)  The list has 2 anti virus programs on it.

[Centurus]

The only reason I made this post was to see if I should have continued my efforts to clean the system, or just stop and reformat the entire thing.  Spybot I've used before.  No offense to anyone who uses it, but it's junk.  I used it for a while, and it made things worse in the end, and it was a clean format that I installed it on.

The anitivirus check I was doing on that laptop took a little over 5 hours total, ending roughly 35 minutes after I made my initial post.  And if you add the hour and a half scan that Ad Aware did, that's roughly 7 hours total of scanning. 

The kids that use that laptop never bothered to clean the temp files from the system, and whatever they downloaded to cause the mess in the first place was downloading more and more junk and viruses into the system each second the thing was connected to an internet connection.  During the long virus check, the antivirus categorized some of the infected files as trojan generators. 

From what I've seen, the Avast antivirus seemed to do a very nice job.  Picked up a few bits of adware that Ad Aware didn't, and I can't find any other indications of viruses in the system.  Took me 4 hours though to clean out the temp files and temporary internet files, but in the end I regained 30 gigs of space on their system.

Hopefully the system is free and clear.  Right now it boots up a bit slowly, but it probably needs a defrag after what it's been through.  Also, it's been my experience that when a computer has been hit hard with viruses, no matter how clean you get it, the damage is done. 

So far, it's looking good. 

[Commander Maxillius]

30 gigs?!?  Tell the kiddies to stay off the pr0n sites!!

[Centurus]

30 gigs?!?  Tell the kiddies to stay off the pr0n sites!!

Yep, 30 gigs.  Windows says the hard drive is roughly 75 gigs total in size, and when I got it, it was 45 gigs full.  After I cleaned it up, it was 10.5 gigs full, and the rest was free. 

And I found out today that the laptop is used by the sons of my mom's coworker, and they're teenagers.  I wasn't surprised when I found that out. 

[Just plain old Punisher]

Format and reinstall windows. That's what I do every 6-8 mo.

[The Bar-Abbas Anomaly]

Format and reinstall windows. That's what I do every 6-8 mo.

Complete waste of time & effort!  How do you ever expect to take over the world if you have to stop twice a year to re-install your O/S?!?

Just inefficient... That's what I say!   

[KBF MalaK]

The only reason I made this post was to see if I should have continued my efforts to clean the system, or just stop and reformat the entire thing.  Spybot I've used before.  No offense to anyone who uses it, but it's junk.  I used it for a while, and it made things worse in the end, and it was a clean format that I installed it on.

The trick with spybot is to install it with 'teatimer' resident, so everytime some malicious proggy wants to write to your registry you get a notice. And when you allow the change make sure you click the 'remember' box so you can un-do it later if need be. Make sure to get the latest updates before every scan and immunize after every update in 'stealth' mode. Spybot is a great proggy (for free) that doesn't over scan and flag good proggy's as malware.

Adaware is pretty good too. Catches most pop-up while surfing. Now if anyone can disable em on Gamespy I'd be forever in your debt (NO, I ain't becoming a member). It even blocks those wonderful speedy searchbars that install into your browser as well as not letting anything change your homepage.


With most AV tools you can make a boot disk thats 'clean' and will scan the drive before the OS load's and may save you from a reinstall. You should also empty your browsers cashe before you do any kind of scanning as well as empty your wastebasket. No need to scan thousands of garbage files.


Re-install ??? NEVER  ! You can keep it working, and maybe make it work better. Don't give up yet.

[Centurus]

I didn't reformat the laptop.  I cleaned out what files I could, as posted before, and sent the laptop back to the owner, with a complete list of what I did.  My mom's gonna talk to her sometime this week and let her know how the system is running, and my mom is going to relay that info to me.

As for Spybot, when I did use it, it did it's job fine.  That wasn't the problem.  When I tried to uninstall it, that's when it left junk behind.  That's why I don't use Spybot.  It's a good program, but for me, gave me more problems than I wanted.  Oh well.

[The Bar-Abbas Anomaly]

I didn't reformat the laptop.  I cleaned out what files I could, as posted before, and sent the laptop back to the owner, with a complete list of what I did.  My mom's gonna talk to her sometime this week and let her know how the system is running, and my mom is going to relay that info to me.

As for Spybot, when I did use it, it did it's job fine.  That wasn't the problem.  When I tried to uninstall it, that's when it left junk behind.  That's why I don't use Spybot.  It's a good program, but for me, gave me more problems than I wanted.  Oh well.

I know of a lot of people who use Spybot & think it's great.  I prefer Ad-Aware, but there is unfortunately no single program that will find and clean out all viruses/spyware/malware and you should keep both handy.

Also, have a good Anti-Virus available, use Hijackthis, a registry cleaner, and other utils like LSPFix & CWShredder...

[Just plain old Punisher]

Format and reinstall windows. That's what I do every 6-8 mo.

Complete waste of time & effort!  How do you ever expect to take over the world if you have to stop twice a year to re-install your O/S?!?

Just inefficient... That's what I say!   

Windows gets bloated if you don't reinstall it every once in awhile. Think of it as liposuction for your OS>

[Javora]

Windows gets bloated if you don't reinstall it every once in awhile. Think of it as liposuction for your OS>

While I agree with that, six to eight months is a little extreme.  I would go a year to eighteen months at least if not longer.  It is actually one of the few things (very few) things I am looking forward to Vista for.  Assuming of course that Vista will actually address this issue as Microsoft has claimed.

[KBF MalaK]

Windows gets bloated if you don't reinstall it every once in awhile. Think of it as liposuction for your OS>

While I agree with that, six to eight months is a little extreme.  I would go a year to eighteen months at least if not longer.  It is actually one of the few things (very few) things I am looking forward to Vista for.  Assuming of course that Vista will actually address this issue as Microsoft has claimed.

Bloated ? I don't understand,
 I've got XP pro at work and it does get tempermental at times but clearing out the browser cashe, cookies, and stored files as well as emptying the waste basket snaps it out of its funk. I've also turned off the firewall and the automatic updates and spybot keeps the reg clean.

 I've been running 4+ years on the original install on my game computer, and have nearly 2 years on this PC (again on the original install), but win98SE. I know everyone hates it but as I learned how to get it work right and do what I want it to do I'm in no hurry to bring XP into my house. I have refined a maintenance routine that I swear WORKS !  Firstly, empty the wastebasket and protected files, then clear the browser cache, stored pages and cookies then turn off swap files (page files) -which erases their contents. reboot in safe mode and run spybot, Adaware, spywareblaster, your A/V, then defrag the whole mess. After the reboot turn back on swap files, reset your auto launchables, and reboot again. Now I have a small empty swap file, and optimized drive, and hopefully no malicious nasties running around. Works everytime and makes the puter run like new. One might try deleting all the e-mail too-500 msgs=20 Mb of drive windows has to index.

just my 2 cents worth but if you gotta reload the OS every now and then, there something wrong with it.

[E_Look]

I'd have to agree with B'Rabbas and Malak; the only times I've had to reinstall were sort of fresh installations: after a HD crash.  Otherwise, I really don't have too many problems with the OS (Win XP Pro) itself.

[Nemesis]

My current Windows install goes back 18 months and is stable.  It is securely firewalled off (hardware).  I use Firefox (configured with paranoia in mind).  I only install what I acutally plan to use on an ongoing basis.  It was only reinstalled then because I was upgrading the HD and reorganizing to take advantage of the larger space.  I only ever need to reinstall due to major hardware changes (soon I hope to do so again).

Having no firewall or an inadequate/poorly configured one opens you to a variety of attacks.  Installing every piece of "cute" software only to uninstall it 48 hours later tends to leave undocumented dlls replacing standard ones and registry entries all over your system which can cause problems escpecially when they conflict with the defaults. 

These things can be done to make your system more long term stable:

Get your firewall up and properly configured.  If you use IE then get advice from B'Rabbas on locking it down. 

Then THINK before installing random software and decide do you really intend to use this over the long term?  If not do you really need it for the short term?  Can you trust its source?