I think I have a virus.. Can anyone help?

Question

When I sign onto my account, none of the desktop buttons appear, or the start bar. I cant right click, or left click and drag to get the box thing. I had to "ctrl alt del" to get the Windows Task Manager up so I can get into fire fox. I recently bought a great virus protector, so I don't know whats going on.

I've had the problem before, where everything (start bar desktop items) would go away, but all I had to do was log out of my user account, but now when I turn it, its not loading, and I've tried logging into the other accounts on the computer, and its the same problem.

Answer 1

Josh I am not a computer expert. I do have a great technician that I call on for everything. I am not sure if you have a Virus. You may have one. What you are experiencing doesn't sound great. I just went through my second one in the last couple of years. Like the first one it took this fellow about three and a half hours to clean my system and reload all the essential programs. After that I am still making decisions on what I want to reload and reloading the dam machine a week later. I hate to tell you this. As he explained to me no matter what you do to try and prevent Virus's and other c**p from getting through once and a while something will get through. I too have great Virus etc. protection like you. I have gotten plenty of tips on how  to get rid of these problems even from my service protection provider. Nothing works for me except system cleaning and starting over. I use a Microsoft XP windows operating system on one of my computers and Microsoft Vista on the other system. Its the XP that has caused me the problem twice. I think that you have a few choices. Contact your operating service provider, the computer manufacturer of find yourself a great tecnician. Best of Luck Bob  Post Script  WHAT A HASSLE HUH!

Answer 2

First do an ONLINE SCAN  - Kaspersky is the best one and works well..

just be patient - it takes a long time to download the virus definitions and do the scan...

http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

Prior to doing an ONLINE SCAN it's a good idea to clean up all your temp files and internet history and cookies:

Use ATF Cleaner, Clean-up or Disk Cleanup to do this: (disk cleanup = program files> accessories> disk Cleanup)

After the ONLINE SCAN is complete download the following programs and do further scans:

(each different program cannot detect all the problems, it is wise to run several)

FOR VIRUSES, MALWARE and TROJANS =

1. Malwarebytes

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

2. Super AntiSpyware Free Edition

http://www.superantispyware.com/download...

FOR ADWARE< SPAM and COOKIES =

3. Spybot Search and Destroy:

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirro...

4 Lavasoft Adaware

http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Pers...

To CLEAN OUT all your temp files/internet history/cookies and other junk =

ATF Cleaner (choose the option of 'select all')

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/Se...

or CLEAN UP

http://www.stevengould.org/index.php?Ite...

you should also consider keeping MOZILLA FIREFOX as your browser as it is much more secure than IE

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

then you should get a good ANTIVIRUS if you dont already have one

AVIRA ANTIVIR is the best free one on the market ...

if you already have an antivirus and your happy with it - keep it - don't use more than one antivirus

AVIRA ANTIVIR:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/A...

best of luck

All of the above programs work extremely well and are FREE

if you have a severe problem you shouldn't try and tackle it yourself, there are many TECH SITES

that offer expert tech help (free, but if they help you, you should consider donating to the cause)

an extremely good one is WHAT THE TECH FORUMS:

http://www.whatthetech.com/

There are other powerful programs out there that also eliminate viruses and trojans but shouldn't be used

unless with the guidance of an expert user (on a Tech Forum) such as SD FIX and HIGHJACK THIS...so be careful.

Safe Surfing