Does this sound like a good solution?

[shutupdonnie]

Bare with me...short novel here. Apologies for being too thourough, I'm still an amateur.

The computer involved is running Windows XP home edition version 2002, service pack 3.

Before lunch yesterday, the computer was running fine. When I sat back down at the computer, about 6 p.m., the computer was not fine at all. Malware/virus that looked very similar to Microsoft security center started popping up saying that the system had been hacked and was infected and needed to purchase/activate the program with a registration key to remove. I had to boot up in safe mode and I ran Malwarebytes. I don't have the exact name of the program, but something to the effect of Hijack was found by Malwarebytes. I would choose to remove, but when booting back up in normal Windows mode, things were still awry. I went back to a restore point from April 1 and now the pc is fine.

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

Bare with me...short novel here. Apologies for being too thourough, I'm still an amateur.

The computer involved is running Windows XP home edition version 2002, service pack 3.

Before lunch yesterday, the computer was running fine. When I sat back down at the computer, about 6 p.m., the computer was not fine at all. Malware/virus that looked very similar to Microsoft security center started popping up saying that the system had been hacked and was infected and needed to purchase/activate the program with a registration key to remove. I had to boot up in safe mode and I ran Malwarebytes. I don't have the exact name of the program, but something to the effect of Hijack was found by Malwarebytes. I would choose to remove, but when booting back up in normal Windows mode, things were still awry. I went back to a restore point from April 1 and now the pc is fine.

this sounds like an end user here....

 

[shutupdonnie]

I guess you missed the part that said amateur. Sorry for being so thourough, I'm still learning.

 

[jr866gooner]

Yes now you have stability back you can focus on running further av and Malware scans to be sure. Look through some regular folders these items lurk like c\ temp for example-look out for random file names. Take notes and if confident check out the registry for dirty files it may have left. These can sometimes be in start up locations.

 

[NYJimbo]

I went back to a restore point from April 1 and now the pc is fine.

So you posted this thread because .... ?

ps - If you are asking if going back to a previous restore point is always the right answer, then YES. ALWAYS. We never have to do anything but restore
point restoration.

 

[Xander]

I fixed four PCs today just running System Restore. It's a good thing the public knows nothing about this or we'd all be out of work.

/~15 of the OPs posts have been towards recommendations for a new phone. I guess this is a "give back" thread?

 

[seedubya]

If I am mistaken about your status please then I apologise!

Have a look at the second rule here (that you should have read when you joined) entitled No End Users and then please go somewhere else.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

lol you guys are so mean, relying on xp system restore is not a "good" solution.

 

[Knightsman]

put rkill as a startup item, the first item in the folder, then run combofix/malwarebytes once the system starts up in normal mode.

 

[rsarceno]

Restore Point is a good thing to know but it's just part of fixing the problem. You still need to know the root of the problem so it wont happen again. This is so true with the recent Microsoft Update that was push last week. If you didn't block a particular KB update, it will BSOD again and again.

Combofix is a great tool but it's something I wont recommend to an armature. If you want to play with it, setup a test PC.

Everyone has to learn at somepoint

 

[shutupdonnie]

There's a thread in the announcement forum that says something about flaming people and cruising past a topic if it's beneath your level of expertise...

But I do appreciate the positive responses and I'm headed in the right direction.