gallione11
01-06-2008, 09:45 PM
I woke up this morning and found my computer acting very odd. I ran AdAware and it found 13 trojan horses along with a bunch of other stuff. I had the program take care of those, but there is still something seriously wrong and I'm not sure how to go about fixing it.
First, there is a yellow triangular sign with an exclamation mark in the system tray that repeatedly pops up with a balloon saying:
"Windows Antivirus.
Spyware detected. Click here to download the most up-to-date spyware removal software."
It's paraphrased, but that's the jist of it. I know it's fishy, because when I hover the mouse over that icon, it says "Windows Security Allert." Learn to spell hackers... I recently got rid of it temporarly by picking off processes one by one in the task manager, but I'm not sure which one it was. Of course, it will almost assuredly be back when I restart the computer.
Secondly, and this is the real bad one, I'm using WinXP and I'm the sole user of the computer. As such, there is only one user account; mine, and it's admin account. However, something has now made my account act like a guest account. I could not access anything of use on the control panel, like System Properties, Add/Remove Programs or antyhing of the sort. On my most recent restart, the control panel has completely disappeared. I cannot access from the start menu or windows Explorer, and yes, I do have the option "Show Control Panel in My Computer" on (option is in Windows Explorer). Now, I do not have anti-virus software. I was using Avast (an online, active scanner) but it's since been disabled. I have tried using the online scan at Trend Micro but the last time I tried, it stoppped about halfway through it.
Thirdly, and this is of minor importance, my desktop instead of having Flames Wallpaper, now has what looks like an error message, stating "Active Desktop has encountered an error" with some troubleshooting suggestions.
Anyone have ideas on what I can do to remedy this?
First, there is a yellow triangular sign with an exclamation mark in the system tray that repeatedly pops up with a balloon saying:
"Windows Antivirus.
Spyware detected. Click here to download the most up-to-date spyware removal software."
It's paraphrased, but that's the jist of it. I know it's fishy, because when I hover the mouse over that icon, it says "Windows Security Allert." Learn to spell hackers... I recently got rid of it temporarly by picking off processes one by one in the task manager, but I'm not sure which one it was. Of course, it will almost assuredly be back when I restart the computer.
Secondly, and this is the real bad one, I'm using WinXP and I'm the sole user of the computer. As such, there is only one user account; mine, and it's admin account. However, something has now made my account act like a guest account. I could not access anything of use on the control panel, like System Properties, Add/Remove Programs or antyhing of the sort. On my most recent restart, the control panel has completely disappeared. I cannot access from the start menu or windows Explorer, and yes, I do have the option "Show Control Panel in My Computer" on (option is in Windows Explorer). Now, I do not have anti-virus software. I was using Avast (an online, active scanner) but it's since been disabled. I have tried using the online scan at Trend Micro but the last time I tried, it stoppped about halfway through it.
Thirdly, and this is of minor importance, my desktop instead of having Flames Wallpaper, now has what looks like an error message, stating "Active Desktop has encountered an error" with some troubleshooting suggestions.
Anyone have ideas on what I can do to remedy this?