computer problem....

[87sooner]

so it seems one of my pc's might be infected with the blaster worm.....
wouldn't let me do anything except start IE.....and a window that said i needed to activate "malware protection"....
the "malware protection" was $59 and after selecting...the next page asked for all my info....name/address/crecit card #....
i said f that and started googling possible fixes..
none of the suggestions worked....if i downloaded the fix....when i tried to open the file it failed and said it was too infected...
so i started the pc in safe mode and ran spybot....
then i downloaded avast and ran a scan...
then i rebooted and a black window popped up with a dos prompt....
when i tried to close it the window started jumping around on the screen ...
i shut the pc off and haven't tried anything else...
i'm going to get an external hard drive today to try to get all my pictures and a few files off the pc....important stuff...

anyone seen this before? any advice?
i had been running msse for my antivirus but on xp machines...it seems the auto update wasn't working too well so that must have left a hole somewhere.......

[1890MilesToNorman]

Are you comfortable going into the registry? If you are do a search for "runonce", each time it comes up look just above it where it says "run". This will tell you what is running when Windows boots up.

[87sooner]

Are you comfortable going into the registry? If you are do a search for "runonce", each time it comes up look just above it where it says "run". This will tell you what is running when Windows boots up.

ok...i'll do that AFTER i get my pics saved....in case i screw something up...
that's "regedit" right?

[stoops the eternal pimp]

how many times have you rebooted since the black dos screen started popping up?

That's happened before after removal of such enemies before

[1890MilesToNorman]

correct. Export the registry to a file before you make any changes. Look through the entire registy, there are more than one instances of "run" in there.

[87sooner]

how many times have you rebooted since the black dos screen started popping up?

That's happened before after removal of such enemies before

a couple of times....but only in safe mode...
didn't want to give the "enemy" a chance to do any(more) damage....

[Aldebaran]

[87sooner]

tried that...
the task menu pops up but closes instantly....

[Theskipster]

Reboot into safe mode with networking, download malwarebytes. Install it and let it update. Run a scan after the update while still in safe mode.

I have never seen malwarebytes fail on this particular problem.

[sooner_born_1960]

run msconfig. disable all the startup stuff.

[JohnnyMack]

The other day I was playing Day of Defeat and found a board where I could play as a zombie Nazi. It was awesome.

[Theskipster]

I don't know what variant you have, so I should mention that some variants change IE to use a proxy to control where IE can go. Make sure you disable the proxy setting in IE before you download malwarebytes.

Edit:

run msconfig. disable all the startup stuff.

I have seen some variants of this hide password stealing parts in LSA or hitchhike on explorer which msconfig won't show.

[RacerX]

boot safemode with networking
run rkill.com
run malwarebytes (select update, then let it do a full scan)
drink something cold
let malwarebytes delete/correct whatever it finds

That should do it.

[87sooner]

boot safemode with networking
run rkill.com
run malwarebytes (select update, then let it do a full scan)
drink something cold
let malwarebytes delete/correct whatever it finds

That should do it.

winner!!!!!!

this seemed like the simplest approach so i tried it first...
my pc is now functioning normally.
removed msse and am now running avast...
thanks for all the ideas.....

[Blue]

Rub some Tussin on it.

[87sooner]

Reboot into safe mode with networking, download malwarebytes. Install it and let it update. Run a scan after the update while still in safe mode.

I have never seen malwarebytes fail on this particular problem.

oops....
actually this was the winner...
malwarebytes rocks...

[RacerX]

Glad you got it fixed.