OT: HELP!! Virus??

Deathstalker · #1 October 15th, 2003, 12:36 AM

Yes, the prodigal child has come home. Why you ask? Because the brains reside in this forum. I recently had to reboot/format/rescue my computer, don't know why but it just got so slow clogged that we decided to start from the system restore again. Now for my problem, we had no anti-virus protection, my Norton being long expired, so I downloaded 'Avast' anti virus from downloads.com . Seemed to work fine for a few weeks now we get sudden virus attack Messages upon starting the computer every day. they say that a sign of the 'Win32:Adware-001[trj]' has been found in the /documents/winshow/winshow.dll file and also in the System Volume Information\_restore{blah blah lots of numbers blah}.dll .

Anyone know about this Win32:Adware virus?? tried a general search about it, can't find it at all. The free Stinger from McAfee can't find anything wrong on the computer and when I select a deep search neither can the Avast, its just upon startup when I try to open a file/folder/explorer. that and I can't get my darn explorer off of the www.search.com as its homepage, even after a reset etc, keeps going there after a restart/reboot.

So to all the brains out there, please help and old se4 vet whos down on his luck

TerranC · #2 October 15th, 2003, 12:57 AM

I can't find anything on Symantec., so I can't help you there. Sorry.

But about that search.com thing:

Have you tried to change your home page address on Internet Options screen yet?

Deathstalker · #3 October 15th, 2003, 01:02 AM

Thanks, and yeah, the search thing, its actually www.searchv.com, really annoying, I've reset the internet options and homepage etc many times. Still comes up as the default homepage. annoying.

The only mention I can find of the Win32:Adware virus is on the Avast homepage under their 'VPS history' , whatever that is, it lists the virus as part of an update for Oct 13th, which includes viruses like the Win32:BatRat virus, whatever that is. Kinda wishing for the virus free days of my 300 baud modem right now....

[ October 15, 2003, 00:05: Message edited by: Deathstalker ]

Alpha Kodiak · #4 October 15th, 2003, 01:06 AM

This link might help. It sounds like your problem.

Atrocities · #5 October 15th, 2003, 01:07 AM

What OS are you running. I know that in XP you have to disable the back up function in order to get a clean sweep of your system if a virus has infected your system.

Deathstalker · #6 October 15th, 2003, 01:21 AM

Thanks all guys, Alpha, this does indeed seem to be the main problem. I am assuming as the 'adware' is part of the name virus it is detecting this darn thing. Unfortunately all the help on your link page is 'greek' to me, I'm a very simple point and click kinda guy.

Fyron · #7 October 15th, 2003, 01:22 AM

You have some spyware/adware that installed itself. You need to get a program like Ad-Aware to clean it up.

Fyron · #8 October 15th, 2003, 01:24 AM

Posting while I was typing.

It actually is not a virus, which is why anti-virus programs can not do anything. It looks like a normal program to them.

Ad-Aware (or an equivalent) is the solution, as you are probably well aware of by now.

Deathstalker · #9 October 15th, 2003, 01:39 AM

Indeed, I've run spy-bot as well as ad-aware 6.0 with the new build. neither has removed this annoying bug. arrrggghhh. Upon each re-start of the computer they find lots of new adware appears on their 'found and removed' list. most of them containing the searchv name in it.

Fyron · #10 October 15th, 2003, 01:44 AM

Did you make sure to get the latest updates for those programs? Try running any updater functions they have.