Help!

chalky

I got a virus today on my laptop, I managed to get rid of the virus but it did a bit of damage. First of all windows firewall isn't working. When I try to enable it it comes up with the following message
"We're sorry. The security center could not turn on windows firewall. To try turning on the firewall yourself, go to Windows firewall in control panel. In the Windows firewall dialogue general tab, select On(recommended), and the click ok."
When I do this it says
"Due to an unidentified problem, Windows cannot display Windows firewall settings"
It won't let me change any desktop display settings (very distressing as I can no longer see Elisha Cuthbert on my desktop).
I keep getting popups when using firefox (when only in boards.ie, they're usually in twos and they resize the browser) and shortcuts to internet sites keep downloading to my desktop.

I'd rather not have to reinstall but I do backup so I wouldn't be to distraught over it.

Karoma

You didn't get rid of it (not all of it at least).
It's spyware. As such, download+install+update AdAware SE & Spybot S&D. (And AVG if you're using NAV or some muck.)
Reboot into Safe mode (tapping F8 on boot -then select Safe Mode)
Scan with everything and clean [disable startup items via MSCONFIG or check that HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Run,etc are clean]

Once all of that is done.
To get the firewall back in operation: There are a few solutions from a quick google of the error. I've had this problem before. You'll find the possible solutions from the google results [sharedaccess.reg did the trick for me. If you can't find it - PM me.]

Disclaimer: Messing with the registry can be bad mmmkay?

chalky

I figured that bout the spyware. I meant I got rid of the actual original virus.
I've already disabled several items from msconfig problem is knowing which items to disable. I'll be able to get rid of the spyware myself, I'm more concerned about the firewall and the problem with the display settings.
Thanks for your help Karoma.

BTW. the .exe file that caused this problem, I scanned it twice with AVG (up to date since this morning)

chalky

I just tried that sharedaccess.reg thing. seems to have sorted out my firewall. I was just about to say I'd got rid of all the spyware when I got another popup. There's much less of it though. I still can't change the Desktop display properties. I'm really missing Elisha.