My dad has a home computer running Windows 7 Home Edition and uses Microsoft Security Essentials for his virus software.
His operating system is up to date and he can access the MS update site.
Recently when he re-booted his computer, he got a message stating that memory was low. He dismissed that message and got another stating that MS couldn't open the following file F108975.exe.vir He dismissed this message and after a couple minutes he got the blue screen of death. Some research indicates that the .vir extension is because an anti-virus program tagged this file as infected, that is the reason the operating system cannot open it.
He was able to start the computer in safe mode and search for this file. He found one named F108975.exe in C:WindowsUsersAppdataRoaming, which we decided to delete.
He re-booted and got the same messages. One way or another he discovered that F108975.exe.vir was in is start up menu. We disabled this and now things are running smooth.
He did a full system virus scan and didn't come up with any infected files.
Is there anything else he should do? I had him empty the recycling bin.
My worry is that even though the file was disabled (by changing the extension to .vir), there still was a memory leak that caused the system to crash. Disabling the start menu shouldn't have affected that.
Any ideas?
Malwarebytes free version has always been an effective combination with MSE for me.
What antivirus is he using? "Windows Defender" aka "Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE)" has been, for lack of a better word, deprioritized by Microsoft. They now basically want to be a last resort type virus protection, and recommend you get something better. I run both Avast "free" version and MSE at the same time, with no apparent conflicts. I scan with MSE on Sunday, Avast on Wednesday, and they both offer some real time protection.
When I first installed Avast, it found something MSE missed. I apparently had a near miss with Cyrptolock, because I found it's messages (asking for money) all over my drives, it deleted my recovery drive, and possibly formatted my external real time back-up drive, but it apparently did not encrypt anything (that I've found yet), and I've been able to recover everything that I know of. ... Perhaps MSE stopped it before it fully activated, but I never got a message saying it did, and Avast still found it on my drive.
I would also suggest running the free version of Super Anti Spyware. It tends to catch things that MS essentials miss.
MS essentials is pretty good, but not a stand alone.
I would also recommend running the virus scan once a day for the next couple days to make sure.
I used to like Avast till it corrupted a computer. It was taking all of the cpu to run it. I couldn't kill it and I couldn't shut it off or get it to uninstall. Since then, I try to avoid Avast.
One of the biggest problems I see when helping folks with virus and malware issues is that they don't realize there's a difference.
Viruses are one thing. Malware is another. Some antivirus programs will actually scan for malware, but the name of the products are the biggest clue. An antivirus program is intended to protect you from viruses. An antimalware program is intended to protect you from malware. You need both.
Sometimes you even need "second opinion" software. While you generally can't have two different antivirus programs on one system due to conflicts, you generally CAN have multiple antimalware programs.
I typically have one of each. With Windows 7, I recommend Microsoft Security Essentials. With Windows 8, MSE is built-in, so you don't need to download it. Ironically, you can also install a third-party antivirus on a Windows 8 machine, but I don't see the point. On all Windows machines, I also recommend Malwarebytes' Antimalware. Regular, weekly scans are pretty much a requirement IMHO. If, after you perform both scans and still experience issues, that's when you should try the second-opinion option. For this, I recommend Hitman Pro. You can install it with a free one-time license and then uninstall it when it has finished. If you need it again later, just install it again. You shouldn't need it often enough to be concerned about installing and uninstalling it all the time.
Microsoft Security Essentials
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5201
Malwarebytes' Antimalware
http://www.malwarebytes.org/
Hitman Pro
http://www.surfright.nl/en
Thanks for the input. Dad updated Malwarebytes and it picked up 3 more item, a .exe file and two registry files.
Now certain links in e-mails do not work (may be a good thing).
I have to talk to him and see which files they were.
