any good techies?

[racerx520]

my parents computer just got that xp antivirus pro virus thing. their computer is so old and so beat up that when i go to open the appropriate program to get rid of this virus (malwarebytes anti malware) it says 'open with' and gives a long list of things but nothing can open the file. would this be the virus somehow blocking it (ive tried all the tricks such as renaming it and stuff) or is this computer missing some sort of wizard needed to start the program?

[bobb1589]

sounds like part of the virus... your best bet would probably be to reformat. typically at work we usually just reformat for anything now because we have it down to a 30 minute process instead of spending at least an hour or two removing the virus and all its traces

[GrandmasterCow]

sounds like .exe's have become unassociated with themselves via the registry.

Vista:
http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/165/1/Restore-the-exe-file-association-in-Windows-Vista-after-incorrectly-associating-it-with-another-application.html

XP/Vista:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555067


Try That

[racerx520]

yeah i finally got it to run. found some article online (i know next to nothing about computers) told me to click some check boxes in mycomputer/tools. then change the file type from .exe to anything else. then it finally ran. have it scanning now and says it found somethingalready. thanks for your help guys

[band77one]

i just got this crap out of nowhere. but i got rid of it fairly easy. i am keeping the files needed on my usb drive just incase. that thing is quite nasty

[Tru2Chevy]

Yea, it's nasty. I have cleaned 4 or 5 computers with it and i'm stuck on my in-law's machine now. They didn't quit using it when I told them too, and now the machine won't even boot into Windows completely. As soon as the welcome screen in XP comes up the machine reboots. I pulled the drive and cleaned the virus files off of it while it was in another machine and then loaded the registry hives and did the typical IS2010 registry mods, but still no luck.

I'm looking for last minute fixes before I have to restore the machine.

- Justin

[cdacda13]

I had the same virus a few months ago. I just re-formatted it since I didn't have anything too important on it at that point.

[Firebird92]

I always run in to this problem but the easier why to fix it is too

get a IDE/Sata to USB adapter take the harddrive out the computer that is having the problem and connect the harddrive to a 2nd computer with norton or some good form of anti-spyware and do a scan.

I found this is better then trying to get it out manual because it always seem to leave a backdoor program on the computer.

my company has a how to video if you want it