Arrgghhhhhh - Spyware/Adware

Roddy23

This has been annoying the hell out of me the last few weeks. Trying to fix the auld lads pc the last few weeks. He's been getting loads of pop ups, and is getting annihilated with Spyware. He has a pentium 3 dell, with 327 mb ram, and Win 2000. He had Mc Afee Anti Virus on it, but his subscription expired. So I applied AVG, EWido, Stinger and Ad Aware to it.
Now here lies the problem, as he is only on dial up, I have not been able to update any of the above, and so I suspect that after each scan (which, is regularly deleting about 20 different files), he is not getting all the Dialup agents, Trojans and spyware.

The most annoying of the Spyware is the Adware.look2me, which doesn't seem to be deleting after I have run both eWido, and Ad Aware. He will be getting broadband in in the next 2weeks, but I want to know if I can do anyhting in the mean time, i.e. do a clean install and put win 2000 on again, or attempt to use Hijack this, which I heard is pretty good, but you'd want to know what you are doing. So anybody with any ideas? Thanks.

petes

Do you have broadband? If so you could download the updates manually and then transfer them to you dad's pc. Also are you scanning in safe mode?

Roddy23

Ye i've broadband, wasn't aware that you could download the updates, and then transfer them over. Ran full system scan's from safe mode, once resarted the machine, same story. Pop up's galore.:(

kaizersoze

Get whatever you need off it and do a format and reinstall. Make sure you have all the drivers and disks first. Quickest option.

majiktripp

Look2Me is a bastard to get rid of but google for look2me remover,theres a file hosted on majorgeeks.com that removes it brilliantly,personally I never recommend wiping and reinstalling,monkies can do a wipe and reinstall...wont stop you getting the spyware again,but if you know how to remove it....then it wont be a problem again...teach a man to fish and you feed him for life etc....

Roddy23

Ye got that uninstaller plus a few things off the net, so I'll have to give it a shot. Clean install is the last resort. Might see can I upgrade it to Win XP. Prob better security all round.

Ruu_Old

If you happen to use System Restore, roll back to before the issues started. That might be an option.

8T8

Most likely the spyware is coming back because all manner of nasties are loading at startup which "heal" themselves after an anti-spyware program attempts a removal.

You need to use HiJack This to nail the programs loading at startup after that run Spybot, AdAware to clean up the remains (do manually update the definitions).

If you are not sure what to remove try posting the log here and maybe we can help.

mizwizzy

if i were in your position roddy23...

1. save all important data from the pc to disc/another h/d

2 perform an unconditional format

3 install ur OS

4 put avg, spybot and zonealarm on

5 load ur data back....

6 create an image of your h/d (just incase it happens again lol)

hope this helps