SS - since no one here is responding, try the computer help forum.

Here is a link that might be useful: Computer help forum

Thanks Graywings I didn't realize there was one! I have a game plan as to what I'm going to do now. If it doesn't work I'll be taking it some place.

I went to McAfee's site trying to find a phone number to question my scan issue and you have to pay to talk to a person. BS. There are forums/chat I did some scanning but found nothing. I sent an email and in 48 hours I should have some kind of answer. Grrr.

I replied on your post on the computer forum, gonna paste it here too. Not sure I'll remember to check there as it's been years since I hung there. If you have issues, Maximum PC magazine has a good forum, there is a guy that's really good with this.

Go to Panda & do a scan. You want to register so that it will remove what it can. Once you are done with that, you want to install Avast Free antivirus. I have it on 3 (2 are kids) computers here, it does a great job.

Get rid of Mcafee.. total garbage. I used to use Norton but haven't in a while.

You also want zonealarm free firewall.

I'm pretty sure I know what you saw last night; wish I could remember the name of the program. It's notorious for doing that.

Thanks Roselvr! I replied back there. I honestly wasn't sure I'd get responses, at least not this soon. Most of the other forums seems pretty slow compared to this one.

I haven't used what he suggested (malaware bites) so really can't comment on it. I still like Panda first; that will clean what it can. The problem with some of these other programs is what if it takes out a file you don't know about, then you start having problems? Some of those registry programs were notorious for screwing computers up because the user trusted what it showed, not knowing it was a needed file.

On our 3 computers, as I said 2 are kids.. well one teen and a 24 year old. My son possibly looks at porn; if his friends are over for the day, they use his puter and go all over. So far since putting avast on he's been fine. My daughter uses Limewire; every now & then it will pop up that a song is infected. It also will not allow her to get anything via AIM. I've been very happy with it.

Now, my hubby who goes to gaming forums uses all sorts of programs and a different antivirus; guess what? He had a few dialers on his last month and someone stole his paypal information. His computer is also running crappy; he uses a program called CCleaner and I think took out some registry files. We will be backing it up and reformatting/reinstalling windows. It's funny, I build computers, maintain the ones at home but he hates bothering me when he has a problem & tries to fix it on his own & makes things worst.

Good luck.. reading the other post; I now remember why I don't go there any more.

Just watch what the program will delete; if it has an option to move to a chest, select that so that you can replace something if need be.

You don't know if you are actually infected with something. This is why I said panda scan first, then you can take it from there.

You should be able to boot your computer from a rescue disk and have it scan for viruses. In the future, do NOT EVER pay attention to a message that says your computer has worms or viruses or anything of that sort and definitely do NOT click on any link in that message.

This happened to me last year. It is a trojan and I can't remember the name of it, but I had to take my computer in to our IT person at work to have it cleaned up. I have thousands of pictures on mine and not all of them were backed up so I was really upset thinking I might lose them.
It's a very sneaky virus because it just starts madly running telling you how infected your computer is and that you need to click on it to block the viruses. I believe it even says "Microsoft" at the top of it. The first time I panicked and told it to run without thinking. It came up on mine again a few days ago and I managed to get out and shut it down. But this weekend I will be backing up my pictures.
Good luck with keeping yours safe.
Dolores

Thanks to the help of some nice people I was able to get it fixed up. Thank you again Graywings for mentioning that forum.

Woodchuckmo - I know! I feel silly for falling for it but it really did look legit. At first glance anyhow. You're right about the Microsoft thing. I'll be backing stuff up now too.

Glad you got it all fixed up, Sheesharee. We had to have our PC shipped off to "the PC hospital" after something strange happened last year, and DH is constantly cautioning me about clicking on anything even remotely "different" that pops up now.

It is probably a trojan - I had the same thing happen just about a week ago while I was online and it freaked me out, too, Alisha! We have Mac's, so have never had any virus or problems, but this message said the computer was "infected and under attack" - like your message. I'd never seen anything like that before. I called DH, and he said "ignore it, just do a shutdown and restart" - which I did and everything was fine. With a PC, you have to be more careful, though, and I can understand how a message like that would alarm you!!

Did they say what you were infected with?

Yeah I'm just really glad it's fixed and apparently nothing real major.

Roselvr - Nobody really said what it was.

Regarding backups... I recently started using Mozy, an online backup program, and LOVE it! There are others, probably just as good, that I've read about. Each day whenever my computer is idle for more than an hour, Mozy starts and backs everything up. The first time it runs it takes something like 48 hours. After that, it's about an hour each time. I don't have to do anything and ALL my files are always backed up. They use encryption to handle security concerns,and it is recommended by quite a few places.

I think someone mentioned that what you posted, the registry change wasn't necessarily bad but could be from a program being removed. I wonder if there is a way to find out if you were actually infected with something? This is why I suggested the Panda scan because it would have told you.

btw, make sure you do windows updates. I personally would get rid of Mcafee. I know you paid for it but it's a resource hog.

For backups I have multiple hard drives, they are cheap. I have an external enclosure that holds 2 drives. I have a computer running windows XP, installed the Maxtor Maxblast program and use that to back up to the larger drives. As far as I know, they don't have a program (Maxtor) like this for Vista but I could be wrong. What it will do is back it up as files verses a file that you have to unpack. If you back up your C drive, you will see every folder on the C drive in your backup.

Bestyears - Thanks for the suggestion. that sounds like the way to go. I'll be looking in that.

Roselvr - It said I was infected with something and I removed that object it found? Since Ravencajun offered help first that's why I went with him. Plus I'm not real computer savvy and you weren't real specific about what I needed to do to get rid of McAfee etc. I didn't know if having more than one virus program in my computer would be bad. I probably will get rid of McAfee. I've had other people say some bad things about it recently too.
" What it will do is back it up as files verses a file that you have to unpack. If you back up your C drive, you will see every folder on the C drive in your backup.".. I'm not even sure what that means! lol I'll have to have someone help me out with the back up thing.

It just happened to me now. I clicked the cancel button (which didn't work), then closed the site.

It happened a couple of weeks ago and I did follow through with their instructions for a few clicks. It "revealed" that this computer was infected with over a 100 viruses. That's when I left the computer as it was for the office staff to deal with when they came in the following morning. I was positive we didn't have over a hundred viruses because this computer has virus protection. One could have slipped in, but 100?

It's scary the first time it happens, isn't it?

Best to run the scan in Safe mode as the viruses usually are unable to operate in that mode. Do a google search to see how to run in safe mode. It really is easy!