Can't even right click. This computer I had yesterday was a nightmare. They had viruses and malware coming out their vents on this PC, I felt dirty just touching it.
Anyway, not sure if it was a combination of a few, or just one particularly annoying virus, but this sucker took me forever to clean.
As mentioned, no start menu, no desktop or icons, can't right click... NOTHING. Boot into safe mode, same exact thing.
Not sure how, but I finally managed to get it to open directly to "my documents" when I logged in. That at least gave me "some" access to the computer since I could explore it.
It showed 2 extra drives on the system that didn't exist, and would not recognize my flash drive in safe mode. So I had to boot into regular mode, load up and run a bunch of malware/spyware/av programs, but since I was in regular mode it kept coming back. It also had the function to automatically use system restore when it was deleted.
But it was enough at least, that I could reboot into safe mode and see my flash drive. I loaded all the programs once again in safe mode and cleaned everything I could find. Still no desktop. After running Hijack this it had a ton of registry lines, and it took me another huge chunk of time to go through this line by line searching each one to find the culprit.
It took over 4 hours, but I finally got the desktop back, was able to backup the files she wanted and then removed all of the old applications and junk from the hard drive to get it as close to a "new install" as possible. (It was a Dell, and her mother had lost the system restore disc... so re-install wasn't an option unless they bought a new OS)
Anyone else run into this bugger? The trick of making "everything" disappear from the desktop was the killer for me. It renders everything completely useless, you can right click, click, ctrl-esc, everything you can think of and nothing will appear. If you went to task manager you'd see suspicious programs (even in safe mode) but if you try to kill them they disappear and re-appear right after with a different name.
One of the nastier cleanings I've ever had to do. Just wondering if anyone else has come across this kind of thing, and if you found an easier way to get to explorer so you could at least access your tools?
Anyway, not sure if it was a combination of a few, or just one particularly annoying virus, but this sucker took me forever to clean.
As mentioned, no start menu, no desktop or icons, can't right click... NOTHING. Boot into safe mode, same exact thing.
Not sure how, but I finally managed to get it to open directly to "my documents" when I logged in. That at least gave me "some" access to the computer since I could explore it.
It showed 2 extra drives on the system that didn't exist, and would not recognize my flash drive in safe mode. So I had to boot into regular mode, load up and run a bunch of malware/spyware/av programs, but since I was in regular mode it kept coming back. It also had the function to automatically use system restore when it was deleted.
But it was enough at least, that I could reboot into safe mode and see my flash drive. I loaded all the programs once again in safe mode and cleaned everything I could find. Still no desktop. After running Hijack this it had a ton of registry lines, and it took me another huge chunk of time to go through this line by line searching each one to find the culprit.
It took over 4 hours, but I finally got the desktop back, was able to backup the files she wanted and then removed all of the old applications and junk from the hard drive to get it as close to a "new install" as possible. (It was a Dell, and her mother had lost the system restore disc... so re-install wasn't an option unless they bought a new OS)
Anyone else run into this bugger? The trick of making "everything" disappear from the desktop was the killer for me. It renders everything completely useless, you can right click, click, ctrl-esc, everything you can think of and nothing will appear. If you went to task manager you'd see suspicious programs (even in safe mode) but if you try to kill them they disappear and re-appear right after with a different name.
One of the nastier cleanings I've ever had to do. Just wondering if anyone else has come across this kind of thing, and if you found an easier way to get to explorer so you could at least access your tools?
