I have just begun using Avast 4. I have had several problems with my computer lately. I originally thought we just had a browser hijacking. I spent 4 hours on the phone with Microsoft Friday night with no resolution. I finally seemed to fix the hijacking myself yesterday using Spybot S&D, Ad-Aware 6, something called About Buster. I also used Hijackthis and got rid of the R02-BHO 1 and 2 files. When I downloaded Avast 4 to begin using it, it imediately told me it had found a virus (win 32 Trojan-gen) and I began accumulating pop-ups. I ran the Avast scan on start up and deleted the virus. It scanned again and found win 32 start page-006. Those were also deleted. I thought this had taken care of my problems. I went to Trend Micro to do their free virus scan and during this process, Avast found several more trojans. win 32: Trojan-gen, win 32: Trojano-214, win 32: BiSpy, win 32: Trojano-191, win 32: Trojano-092, win 32: Istbar-C, and win 32: Istdnldr-B-UPX. All of these had supposedly been deleted previously except the last 2, which seemed to be new finds. I have put them in the virus chest as they don’t seem to be deleting. Trend Micro’s scan did also find 23 infected files. All except one being Trojans as well. I deleted all files Trend Micro’s scan found and then ran Ad-Aware and Spybot once again. I’m not sure what actions to take next. None of these are listed in the virus cleaner for Avast Did deleting the files Trend Micro found do the trick, or do I still need to clean out the trojans found by Avast 4? My OS is Windows XP and all the updates and security patches have been downloaded and installed. What is my next step? Thanks for any help you can provide!
Instructions/programs to clean/protect a system from viruses, spy-/ad-/malware and browserhijackers: http://members.home.nl/edeijl/acred/cleaning.htm This page also has a link to a hijackthis log file analyzer and explanation about the HJT logfile.
Follow the instructions on that page to completely clean your system.
Small hint: the problem you are describing is handled multiple times in various threads on this forum. So instead of asking a question that has been asked and answered multiple times already. Please search the forum first. This way you also don’t have to wait for an answer
I’ll give you the simple, direct answer:
I had the exact same problem and fixed it by selecting “Schedule a Bootime Scan” from the Avast main menu.
Then reboot your PC.
This will run a complete system scan before any programs load into memory. Avast will find infected files - either try to fix them and if that doesn’t work, move them to a folder where you can at least go back later and see which files were affected - that way you can decide if they are important files or not.
Good Luck 8)