Morning folks, must be many of you in the same situation as I am.

[yy4me]

Computer illiterate, always asking for a little help. Well, here I am again. I know something is wrong with my machine. Last 2 weeks or so, strange things.
Care to give me a little help?
Two weeks ago, AVG found a virus, took care of that. Since then, a few odd things. I scan often and delete temp stuff too. Defrag when required, scan disk etc.

Two days ago, the AdvancedWindowsCare program just stopped. It would not allow me to depress the start button to scan. Thinking this was toast, I tried to remove the program. Went to control panel, will not remove, tells me the file is does not exist. The bleeping computer folks told me to do a search in files & folders. No WindowsCare but tons of Iobit stuff. Anyway I removed the program from there.

Two days ago, I did an upgrade to Spybot S & D to the 1.51 version, the 4.1 version told me there were problems in the include file C:\Program Files\Spybot-Search_Destroy\includes Trojans C sbi. See include logs for details. In reading I see that the older version needs to go. Never mind it would not un-install. Remove programs told me the file was not there.

Now I downloaded the the 5.1 version and that shows a new pop-up for me: "Spybot S & D helper has detected an URL that is a known malicious source. with a long URL address.

This machine is so slow. None of my scans show anything, I think something is really wrong internally.

We have been using this machine a lot as of late, trying to find information about an upcoming trip. We did bump into a couple of not-so-nice web sites. Hope nothing came along with that junk.

Someone told me I needed to use Wise Registry Cleaner. Well, the last time I did that, about a year ago, some of my stuff stopped or vanished. I told it ok to delete the stuff that was safe to delete. Well, I guess some was no so safe. I don't know what any of it is anyway.

Is there any general diagnostic tool that is safe for me to use to see if I have some kind of a nasty going on that the other programs are not catching?

The slowness if this machine is driving me nuts and the messages make me want to tear my hair out. You may find it hard to imagine that anyone is as befuddles as I seem but I grew up in a very pre-computer age.
I have a ton of available memory thanks to you all who helped me install it.
Specs are as follows:
HP Pavilion 526X
Windows 6.0 SP2 Windows Firewall
IE6
512 MB Ram
Use AVG, SpywareBlaster, Spybot S & D
Ad-Aware.
Broadband service

I've searched places like MajorGeeks for some kind of diagnostic tool but I don't even know what to try to find out why this thing does not run well. I don't know what else to do. Any thoughts?

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

1. There are a lot more tools within Spybot than you may realize.

First, try to update it to v1.52, then do the online updates and run the immunization tool.

Then, in go to the Mode Menu and switch from Default Mode to Advanced Mode. Once there you will have access to several advanced tools, including one that controls your system startup items (color coded for easy use- green for okay items, yellow for okay but unnecessary items, and red for items that should be immediately disabled). There is also a tool for IE BHOs (browser helper objects)- a lot of malware takes advantage of the BHO system to perpetuate itself). Next is a System Internals tool that checks for bad registry entries.

There are also other freeware programs such as HijackThis (a registry editor that focuses on internet-related entries), and SmitFraudfix.exe (a handy tool that should be run from Safe Mode).

On top of all that, you also need to make sure you have a good, up to date antivirus program. I always recommend McAfee, but others here also have their favorites and will be glad to let you know what they are.

That's a basic beginning, but it's ONLY the beginning of the process. A more advanced virus-slaying technique post is HERE: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=242x18605

Please note that the very first thing you need to do is BACK UP YOUR IMPORTANT FILES TO AN EXTERNAL MEDIUM. This usually means either burn a series of cds or copy everything to a second hard drive. Do this first, and then do this often.

Have fun!

[hobbit709]

2. First thing you have to do is turn of System Restore

Unfortunately if you have a virus and Restore is on, Windows will put it right back on your next boot.
Advanced Windows Care is Iobit. Turn off System Restore, reboot in Safe mode and scan with both AVG and Spybot. This may take more than one run if infected bad enough. I hope you didn't get the one called WebHancer-I want to do bad things to the clown who thought that particular piece of nastiness up. If you have any difficulties PM me.

[Kali]

3. try this

Start with this basic set of maintenance instructions: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=106650 There you will find links to download some other programs. I have ccleaner, auslogic defragmenter (works much better than the windows version), spybot search and destroy, avg antispyware, and comodo firewall. Your choices may vary but those are kind of minimal requirements. Do not rely on windows firewall, it is not give two way protection and besides it is a microshaft product.

If you already have some sort of infection this is a good set of removal instructions:
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407 Warning: they will tell you to do the basic maintenance from the link in the preceding paragraph first, so do that now.

[DaveJ]

4. Sometimes creating a new user helps

Some malware is login specific. In the event the stuff slowing down your computer is only associated with your login, you can go to the control panel, open up User Accounts, create a new user, and then log in under the new name.