Expert: Brian Benosky - 5/15/2009

Question
Hello my problem all started with Limewire. I should have known better but I just had to have that song.  Well I downloaded it and I believe it was virius. Cause my computer crashed and then after I restarted it my AVG was all messed up and said the key was wrong and not identified so I contaceded AVG and they gave me the right one.  So I tried to redownload it and now my computer will no complete any downloads.  It will go through the process of downloading and then when the downloading is done the download dissapears.  So my problem is I can't download and I do not have AVG anymore cause I can not reinstall it. I hope you can help me.  I would like to be able to download and have anti-virus on my computer.  Thanks I hope you can help.

Answer
Hi Megan

I will try to help you out here as best that I can.  First, try booting into safe mode.  Upon starting the computer, keep tapping the F8 key until a menu appears.  Choose to start Windows in Safe Mode with Networking.  If it then gives you an option, choose to log on as Administrator.  Once logged on, open a browser and try the following:

Download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware to your desktop from here:

http://www.besttechie.net/tools/mbam-setup.exe

Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
* At the end of the install update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and run a full scan.
* When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
* Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
* When completed, a log will open in Notepad.  Save that log and reboot normally.

After rebooting, please download HijackThis to your desktop (hopefully downloads will work now) from here:
http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en-US/_download/HJTInstall.exe
Make sure you close EVERY open window and ALL browser windows. The only thing that should be open is the HijackThis program.
Double-click on the file you just downloaded.
Click on the "Install" button.
Upon install, HijackThis should open for you.
Should it not open, go to C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis and double click on HijackThis.exe
Choose 'Do a system scan and save a log file'.
Copy the text file which opens in Notepad and paste it in your follow-up, along with the Malwarebytes log.
* Do not fix any entries in HijackThis, as they may be harmless.

Brian