Ran AVG Free and now cant run any .exe's

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have a big problem... running XP sp2, and when it went to auto-update it found a win32 virus. I googled it and AVG free seemed like a good solution. Installed and ran the programme no problem, it seemed to find apparent virus's in files which I thought were very unusual / unlikely eg: MS word, winamp, etc. etc. As it found these I clicked 'Move to Vault' for most of them and delete for a couple.
It then told me I had to reboot to complete the cleaning process, so I did that. I have now come back up and I cant run ANYTHING! Most of my icons have changed back to the default icon for progs that windows doesnt recognise, I cant run kazaa, mirc, winamp, firefox, soulseek and plenty of others. To make matters worse, one of the programmes that I cant run is AVG Free itself! So i cant even run the programme again to try and find out whats wrong and fixing it. I have also tried to reinstall the said programmes but when I click the installer I get the same error.
The message I get when I try to run anything is...
"Windows cannot access the specified drive, path of file. You may not have appropriate permissions to access the item"

Can anyone help??

Jaeger

O0oof...still using win98se here so I'm not the expert on XP, would a system restore have any effect?

If not I'm guessing you're looking at backing it all up and formatting

Dublinstiofán

Every xp computer sets up restore points automatically try and restore the computer to a time before the problem started.Dont worry if this doesnt work you can switch it back.you can find out how to do this in the help and support centre for windows xp. Just look for fixing a problem and then problems when starting up and shutting down.If it is looking for a specific file then type that file into the search area on the programmes list it may still be on your computer.If it cant find it take a copy of it from another xp machine.if this doesnt work you may have to reboot your couputer with the windows disk and start from scratch before doing that take whatever files you can off the computer and put them on after the reboot because everything will be erased. One final thing is ya can talk to llorac on the boards he is a friend of mine and he knows a lot about this kind of stuff he might be able to help just tell him i sent ya

smorton

sounds like the virus infected all the exes on your computer. i had one like that before. the only option was a format and reinstall.

RicardoSmith

How does SP2 find a virus?

Also you weren't running an AV or firewall before this ??? :eek:

tba

yeah I had this too, full reinstall was the way to go.
Later that week I got

Spybot s&d
Sygate
AVG
Adaware

Today tba's PC = Free and Clear*

*my blood parasites group Thursdays

Chalk

nm wrote:

I cant run kazaa

if you have no av then you shouldnt be running kazaa
you should use bittorrent to get all your linux isos

as has been said its probably a virus thats affected all your exes
whether through a windows system file or individually
the only way to check that would be to check the logs of avg and find removal tolls for the virus/virii

as with any virus prevention is better than cure and removal of one or more will take a lot of work depending on how bad they affect your system

check the logs and google for the virus
make your own call based on the work required to remove vs the time to do a full format/reinstall

if your removing the virus it would probably be best to uninstall any affected programs after fixing the virus problems and reinstall from discs or download the latest versions from the web

duridian

RicardoSmith wrote:

How does SP2 find a virus?

Also you weren't running an AV or firewall before this ??? :eek:

I am guessing here but lately M$ seem to have started releasing an update once a month which when run checks for malicious software. If you just use express install updates you probably won't notice it, but if you download the updates for use on multiple pcs like I do through the Administrator options of Windows update it is easier to see this type of update file's purpose. Thats's about the only way I can see that updating Windows would find a virus.

RicardoSmith

Well I still don't get it...