PC Infected with virus - cannot install anti-vuirus sw

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carpedeum

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Hi,

We have a problem with one PC here. The PC is infected with a virus. It looks as if the McAfee sw is out of date. Tried to install AVG and Stinger, but, the installation crashes due to infected exe files.

Any ideas? Is it possible to install Stinger on a diskette or Cd and boot the PC off that media?

Any help much appreciated and thanks in advance.
 
Try malwarebytes, download the free version and run a scan.

If this crashes not sure what you can do, maybe you can try installing it in safe mode.

Edited to add: This is a NOT an AV byt will remove most viruses. Also, it should be updated prior to running a scan in the future.
 
Last edited:
What operating system have you?
Can you boot into safe mode and try installing stinger then?
 
Thanks for replies already. The PC is running on XP. I've discovered that McAfee AV was switched of/not renewed by it's user (not me!). Painful lesson being learnt. When I tried to install other AV's, those appl exe files became infected during set up!
 
Thanks for replies already. The PC is running on XP. I've discovered that McAfee AV was switched off/not renewed by it's user (not me!). Painful lesson being learnt by him! When I tried to install other AV's, those appl exe files became infected during set up!
 
Instead of Glary Utilities I would recommend using Advanced SystemCare Free edition. The former is a top notch piece of software as previously described. I had been running with it for 18 months or so and was extremely happy with what it was doing for me. However of late it started creating a massive (30gb plus) file in my temporary file folder. Despite unstalling and reinstalling the software the problem persisted. I eventually uninstalled in at the weekend and begain using Advanced SystemCare Free. So far so good. It has a decent review on CNET.
 
carpedeum said:
Hi,

We have a problem with one PC here. The PC is infected with a virus. It looks as if the McAfee sw is out of date. Tried to install AVG and Stinger, but, the installation crashes due to infected exe files.

Any ideas? Is it possible to install Stinger on a diskette or Cd and boot the PC off that media?

Any help much appreciated and thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

The old Dr. Solomons used to have a magic bullet floppy disc.

I wonder if there is a modern CD-ROM equivalent.

Presumably if the user turned off MacAfee they also didn't do backups.

If there is no way out in terms of cleaning the files, you will need to do a system install.

If a "repair" install is available this may be enough, but it sounds like you will need a complete install.

If you install from scratch you will most likely lose the information files.

However... there is a long workaround available.

You can make a bootable Linux CD.

Boot into Linux using the CD.

Copy all the files from the hard drive [HD] to a FAT 32 formatted external hard drive with a USB interface.

Linux can write to FAT 32 and understand USB protocols - that's a definite going back several years.

It may be able to write to NTFS formatted volumes by now and understand Firewire - you'll have to research this.

Once the files have been copied perform a complete system restore from scratch.

Be careful incase there is some sort of low level rootkit or master boot record virus.

You may need to do a low level format on the HD to completely erase the previous infection.

It might be cheaper to transfer the files and install on a fresh HD.

FWIW

ONQ.
 
Hi All,

Good news. Thanks ONQ for the detailed reply, though I was in the middle of the rescue by then. Your Linux suggestion reminds me of a time I used Knoppix Linux to recover files from a bad disk some years ago!

I successfully installed Advanced System Care (tks Kellyj), ran a scan and cleaned off 214 problems! I was then able to run Stinger and install AVG, configuring PC for daily updates of AV and anti-spyware and weekly disk scan. Windows updates hadn't been applied either and he was using old IE (now Mozilla!). One residual problem is McAfee pop up warnings keep appearing - uninstall of trial McAfee version seems to have terminated abnormally during AVG install. At least his PC is back running!

Many thanks again - I have filed away the thread for future use.

Have a good and safe Christmas.
 
Another possible way of solving this (if it were to happen with any other machine) is to remove the hard-drive; pop it into an USB-external hard drive caddy and scan on another computer with existing AV software (on that computer).
 
hansov said:
Another possible way of solving this (if it were to happen with any other machine) is to remove the hard-drive; pop it into an USB-external hard drive caddy and scan on another computer with existing AV software (on that computer).
Click to expand...


+1

Have done this a couple of times in the past, far easier than flutin' around with Linux and countless reboots etc......
 
kellyj said:
Instead of Glary Utilities I would recommend using Advanced SystemCare Free edition. The former is a top notch piece of software as previously described. I had been running with it for 18 months or so and was extremely happy with what it was doing for me. However of late it started creating a massive (30gb plus) file in my temporary file folder. Despite unstalling and reinstalling the software the problem persisted. I eventually uninstalled in at the weekend and begain using Advanced SystemCare Free. So far so good. It has a decent review on CNET.
Click to expand...

Do you have links to good reviews of this software?
 
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