Help..computer beseiged by viruses

[WildBillHickok]

I've been running adware 6.0 and SpyBot Search and Destroy once a week, and it had been doing fine...suddenly i'm getting tons of pop ups, 50 new ad miners, etc per day and ONE resgistry that won't go away.
Any suggestions? Does Norton do a good job? What's the best remedy out there? thanks.

wildbill

[Kuso]

it's really hard to get rid of some viruses, as part of the virus cripples virus protection software.

fwiw....

1) i do a clean system install every 4-6 months -- more if necessary (usually isn't)

2) if you know how to use it, you can also do "system restore" (after saving all new data, of course).

3) Norton is good IF you put it on a clean machine and keep it updated. it is almost always good to use two forms of protection -- e.g., Norton and Adaware. The computer mags say that this method always gets more out of a computer than one method alone.

4) avoid warez sites and other less-than-reutable sites as much as possible. i'm not saying that you go to these sites, but these kinds of sites are major virus propagators.

[WildBillHickok]

how do you do a "clean system install"? and is it free or does it cost? thx

[Kuso]

yeah, it's free.

you just reformat your hard drive and reinstall all of the software and then add your data again. btw, this is what i recommend.

actually, reformatting the drive is not technically a "clean system install". iirc, the clean system install is something that can easily be done with a mac, but i am not sure about windows. don't ask what the difference is -- it's not worth knowing.

you might want to pick up a book on XP... i recommend dvorak's book. i believe it has lots of handy tips like this.

[Molina]

If you don't have one already, install a firewall. Sygate have a good free one, you then need to set internet access to each program which is useful not to let the nasty programs access from your computer to the internet (ie, expensive porn diallers).

I have my antivirus (Mcaffee) and spyware software (Webroot Spysweeper) running constanly in the bottom right of monitor system tray thingy, if anything slinkd onto my PC I get alerts popping up desperate to delete them.

My PC is turned on near contantly and I've not had any serious issues with firewall, antirus and spysweeper.

Also, make sure Adaware and Spybot are fully up to date on their definitions

Molina

[MVPSPORTS]

Along the same lines... When you reformat, it gives you the choice to completely wipe your computer clean and start over fresh, or keep the data you have (ie... programs you've loaded, etc...) and reformat the operating system only... Would this solve the problem... ?

[low dough]

Before doing the drastic and non-reversible format-and-re-install, try turning off system restore, and rebooting into safe-mode, then run your antivrus suite(ad-aware, spybot, etc.)
Be sure you have the latest definitions for these programs as well.

If you have to format, all you have to do is boot from the XP disc, and follow the instruction for installing up to the point where you have a choice of which partition to install to.
Simply delete the partitions, and it will then format (erase) all the data on the hard drive.

[WildBillHickok]

thanks Molina and everyone, sygate seems to be doing the trick so far...i had rebooted,
don't know if i restored or not...so far so good.