Help Please

I think I might have some spyware on my computer. I ran avast and it came up with 15 files that said unable to be scanned. This never happened before and I have had avast for years. I have both superantispyware and malwarebytes (the free versions). Neither of them are coming up with anything. I did a avast bootscan and nothing came up either. The files that can’t be scanned are in the system restore files. I can’t repair them, put them in the chest or delete them. I can move them but they still come up the next time I scan. What can I do?

Files that cannot be canned is not usually a bad thing. It means only what it says, that it tried to scan them and failed.
What did it flag them as? What type of scan where you doing when it happened?

It just said it unable to scan files. I was doing the thorough scan and scan archive files. I have avast 4.8 free edition.
Here is a screen shot of what came up. I don’t know how to get the actual logs though.

http://i56.tinypic.com/2n6w569.jpg

those files is protected files that avast could not get access to for scanning. if malwarebytes,avast and superantspyware comes out clean your computer is clean. but if avast is flagging those as infection try a boot scan and send them to the chest where they could not harm your computer. but i think those file are files that avast could not scan and thats why they are shown in the scan report.

small advise is that you upgrade to the new version of avast thats out. avast 5 is faster and use even lower ram that avast 4.8 and better protection.

because the support of avast 4.8 will be dropt this mount or the next something like that.

hope this will do for you and welcome here.

Nothing (probably nothing) to be concerned about at all.
System restore files are (partly) encrypted, the likely reason for this. If it turns out one is actually infected - and this is not saying one is - the worst that would happen is that a system restore point contains malware.

As system restore is a fairly unreliable tool, I’d be inclined to use an additional file back-up strategy, anyway.

For info, if you maximize that results window, and drag the headers across, it will reveal the rest of the text, in regards to (in turn) the file path, and the reason for unable to be scanned.

The “mountain lakes” files maybe worthy of further investigation, simply because I’ve never heard of them. If you have, and know the host application to be safe, probably no worries there.

I would suggest the use of an application called ERUNT in lieu of system restore. This is a good registry backup program, that can be set to automatically save several restarts- worth of reg snapshots. It is similar in action to system restore and some users (self included) keep for use instead of same. It is reliable. http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

Concur with the suggestion to update to version 5. Let us know if you need further info/advice.

In addition to the above suggestions, which I agree with, how much space do you have allowed for your System Restore? You can reduce the amount allowed on your machine, which will automatically purge your System Restore.

What is your OS? With XP you can get away with 1% minimum, but with Vista you need 300 GB minimum I believe (but it prompts you if you set it too low in Vista).