He clicked on a link and I think he has a virus now. He has no anti-virus protection because he uses yahoo mail and that he says has its own. I told him that was not enough, obviously.  Usually with viruses I format my computer and start fresh but I'd rather not do that with his computer because if I don't get everything back just the the way my folks had it, I'll never hear the end of it. They won't bitch, but whine. If I can't fix it there will be no peace because it's brand new. I really don't know how to fix it. Can anyone give me any suggestions? 

Attached Link: Free Trials HERE

You might just try doing a system restore.  Without knowing what virus you might have picked up it's kind of hard to make a determination.

Look for a recent restore point and try that.

Best Wishes,
Rªnce

Attached Link: Free online scanner

Download and run AVG or Avast to check for viruses. Either is good

Also get Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware for check for other nasties.

Spybot search and destroy is another good choice.

All these are free, just make sure to download them from their offical sites.

BTW - leave them on the machine and run them at least once a month, because email is one of the most common ways for a machine to catch a cold.

Attached Link: http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro

I believe the first scan is free.

Again, Best Wishes,
R

edit: better link directly to the Surfright Website

avg has a free virus scanner and guard.

http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage

Get Antimaleware from malbytes. 

Boot the computer to safe mode.

Install and run it.

Boot the computer to regular mode.

Run it again.

Install either AVG or Avast and run that scan.

99% of the time this cleans one out.

You might just try doing a system restore.

If it's just a system glitch and not a nasty then yes thats a good idea. However if you have a virus, then theres a good chance it was also infect system restore points. The W32 families and the infamous fake "security tool" malware are very good at doing that.

It can also mean that when you restart the pc, you'll also restart the nasty. The important thing here any genuine virus infection, is to 1st stop the virus processes from running before attempting a disinfection.

basicwiz - oh yes thats a great tool I use that and rkill all the time to remove that fake "security tool" malware. Can usually clean up a machine within 20 minutes.   

My dad said that he's not able to get online so I'm gonna have to use a thumb drive. how on windows 7 can i stop it from writting to the drive so that gets infected too?

Boot to safemode with networking and see if you can get online then.

Many people seem to recommend avg but I've had many things get past it or it not even acknowledge some bugs. Only thing I use now is the free version of Avast. 

OK what you need to do is get online using another machine.

Download avast and malware bytes. Unlike avg (which is usually a small stub installer) the avast download should have enough files to scan and kill.

Stick both on a thumb drive. Then like onnetz said get into safe mode, then run the malware bytes and avast installers. If you can't run either app in safemode, rename the malwarebytes installer to iexplore.exe then repeat that with the avast installer. They should now install.

If safemode gets you online, update both anti-nasty apps, if not cancel any dialogues that say update and scan anyway. Either way once you get online make sure to update your security apps. Also make sure to turn on the windows firewall as well.

Finally once you're clean. LEAVE the security apps on that pc, scan regulary and keep them updated regulary.

Attached Link: LSPFix

Thanks for all that advice. I won't be going to his house to try anything until tomorrow, but I'll follow some of your suggestions. And maybe I'll show him this thread too. If I"ve told him once I've told him 100 time to get an antivirus. Told him about a year to get it for his last computer. Maybe seeing all of you saying he needs it and that he needs to update and run it he'll get the message. Otherwise I might have to "forget" again how to do any maintanance. (he kept asking me to change things and then complain because it was different. "Gee, Dad, sorry I can't put an icon in your desktop. I don't know where your desktop is.")

So if he's the one who didn't follow your advice about the antivirus, shouldn't he be able to fix his own PC?

^ retorhical question.

For now you can download one of those free avs and hope that one of them work.  maybe it'll work, but make sure he changes his passwords in case he's got a trojan.  Also, one thing to hold prevent future viruses (not 100% though) is to have an admin user only for installing things and a normal user account for going online and doing things.  As long as he isn't logged in as an admin, he might have a better chance of not getting another virus. 

If you have to do a system restore, did your parents remember to make a restore disk as PC makers are so cheap these days?  If not, you'll have to call the manufacturer and hope they can send you a disk.

And try to make sure he gets something like kaspersky or one of the good ones (but not norton).

one thing you may run into; some anti-virus programs will point out other anti-virus programs as 'malware'. Yahoo has as many holes in it as a colander (IMHO...;)

Another check is something called Hijack This! Yup, it's actually named that. It's a good tool, but best if you know what you're doing.

There used to be anti-malware sites out there (I used Computer Cops), but in some twisted logic, the bad guys actually scared the good guys off the web...go figure...

If all else fails, wipe Windows off & put Linux in it's place.

Winterclaw: I wish he could. He's had a PC for decades and he gets worse and worse with the thing as the years go by. Another decade and I swear he'll be baiting traps to catch a new mouse. Make a restore disk? HA! That would involve him doing maintanace.

Pakled: I have heard of that before. I may try it, but I'll have to remove or hide it if it's that touchy. They might run it just to see what it does.

Lucifer the dark: Oh God No! They'd never learn it. I'm surprised they've handled moving through the various versions of Windows as well as they have. My mom once said she couldn't use my computer because my theme was different than my dad's. It was a different color so it must work different.  

Are you my brother cause they sound exactly like my parents? hahahaha Last year I tidied up their desktop by auto arranging the icons & my dad went spare accusing me of losing all his stuff.

Free IT support to parents = seventh circle of hell!

Might be worth looking for an anti-malware program that runs off a bootable CD or USB stick, you can run Spybot this way (LINK) and in my experience this would be your most effective first step.

Thereafter choose a decent, free AV program: these days I swear by Microsoft Security Essentials - it's inobtrusive and fairly robust. Do regular Spybot updates and scans to be on the safe side. I've been running half a dozen PCs this way for the last couple of years and have had zero problems.

Format and install some verion of linux. :-) I'm sure they'd love that.

It would help to know what sort of infection we're dealing with. The most common type of late that will not allow an internet connection is Win Anti-vir or Win Antivirus 2011;  both are boot sector bugs that pretend to be antivirus/anti-spyware tools.One nasty feature is that every time you reboot your pc, the infection spreads to other sectors until you suffer a total system freeze.

I believe Antimaleware from malbytes is supposed to remove the infection, and so is Spyware Doctor. If the damage has already reached critical limits, you may not be able to install either program, even in safe mode. Your only remaining option is to format the hd and do a fresh Windows install.

Good luck.

Quote - Antimaleware

We need to keep that stuff out of the hands of feminazis.

/me is afraid of what antimaleware will do

BTW, I've heard Carbonite talked about on the radio for months.  Basically it backs up your PC for you.  Maybe once you get your dad's PC fixed, you charge him 120 or whatever and go get him an AV and carbonite since he won't do it himself.

Antimaleware. Lord.

My brain is slowly turning into mush. I'm ging to have to install a browser spell checker or find a simpler method of communication, like smoke signals.

Quote - > Quote - Antimaleware

We need to keep that stuff out of the hands of feminazis.

/me is afraid of what antimaleware will do

 

 

BTW, I've heard Carbonite talked about on the radio for months.  Basically it backs up your PC for you.  Maybe once you get your dad's PC fixed, you charge him 120 or whatever and go get him an AV and carbonite since he won't do it himself.

Attached Link: Sandboxie

Well, they didn't have a virus, they had 4. It appears that antimalware was able to remove them. The computer seems to be running fine. I hope that is really the case. Time will tell.

Thank you all for all your help. My folks send their thanks too.

run combofix from bleepingcomputer first, then you can run malwarebytes or the others.

Trust me, I am responsible for 100 computers and sometimes even adware/malware gets past anti-virus. combofix works every time. The others do not.

Many ISP's offer free antivirus, go to your isp website and see. Comcast for example has free norton.

Have fun.