said by NY Tel :

LOL - their machine is temporarily hosed. Had a total of 70 infections, trojans, WinBlue Soft etc. on it.

I manage to stop the insanity of popups but was wondering is there a free way to scan and get rid of these threats?

They are willing to pay something but are looking for the best fix, and if it is free - even better.

Thoughts?

said by antiphishing :

Reformat the hard drive, partition , and reinstall Windows, IMHO is the best solution to fixing major infections.

If computer users did proper backups of their hard drives, then this would be a very viable option on fixing Windows problems

said by NY Tel :

that is what I do for my machines and others but she has N O T H I N G backed up.
I can re-install everything quickly but it is her kids photos she does not want to lose. I refuse to back anything up to any of my spare drives for obvious reasons.
I told her to burn them to a set of CD's and then I will re-format etc. I find my machine flies really fast after every re-do anyway.

I was just looking for a quick fix that would avoid a re-format but it looks like with almost 70 threats, trojans etc. detected (these were real ones), it almost is a necessity I am almost certain.

said by Doctor Olds :

Follow the Security Cleanup FAQ.

These are the best in their class, IMHO.

SUPERAntiSpyware »www.superantispyware.com/
Spybot S&D »www.safer-networking.org/
Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware »malwarebytes.org/
Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition »www.lavasoft.com/

said by Doctor Olds :

What version? I had 1.60 and had to manually update to 1.6.2 as it would NOT update through the program.

said by Doctor Olds :

Strange, but then again it is the reason to run multiple solutions. Maybe they had immunization from Spybot and everything else got in.

said by Somnambul33t :

anything less than a format is doing an injustice to PC techs everywhere, no matter the effort required

said by Somnambul33t :

anything less than a format is doing an injustice to PC techs everywhere, no matter the effort required

said by Doctor Olds :

Any tech person that does a reformat with-out first saving the customers data is a disgrace to the industry and to techs in the field.

said by Doctor Olds :

I hear you. I'd have her purchase a stack of DVDs and then write down how to use the back up program showing her what folders she needs to preserve along with profiles/emails.

I'll restore it, but she has to feed it discs while it back up.

said by antiphishing :

In my opinion, The best bet is to cut and paste all the images to a cheap USB flash drive in safe mode and then reformat the machine. The idea is to save as much as you can, that's not infected and then start with a clean hard drive, with Windows and all the security updates/service packs.

If the machine has Windows XP, look at this site:
»www.reimage.com/

said by Doctor Olds :

Any tech person that does a reformat with-out first saving the customers data is a disgrace to the industry and to techs in the field.