Loading Virus Protection Program

[Barquentine]

A case of shutting the stable-door I'm afraid...!

How do I load up my renewal AVG Internet Security program from the CD on a PC which won't boot up properly due to a virus?!

I didn't get round to renewing the expired virus protection for a few weeks and caught a virus in the meantime.

I'm supposed to uninstall the old AVG before installing the new one. I tried to do that by booting it in Safe Mode but that didn't work.

Any other ideas? Many thanks.

[rojash]

You can't install or uninstall programs that rely on the Windows Installer in safe mode, because the Windows Installer itself is disabled in safe mode.

As for installing an AV program on a machine that has a virus, there are two likely problems caused by the fact that the virus is already running: It will detect that you are trying to install an AV program and prevent it, or it will detect the specific AV program and (effectively) modify it so that it (the virus) will not be visible.

You need to get rid of the virus first.
How did you detect the virus?
Has it been identified?

[TTG]

Select msconfig in safe mode and untick anything that looks suspicious on startup. Seach on net using another computer for the processes if you want to know what they do. Good luck. Failing that try system restore.

[TTG]

Sorry start/run/msconfig

[Barquentine]

Thanks I went back to a restore point and the PC has booted up.
However I got the following message after trying to uninstall the old AVG:

Local machine: installation failed
Installation:
Error: Action failed for registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\Windows:creating registry key...
Access denied.

any ideas?
Many thanks.

[AlBags]

You could try a fairly recent Norton Disc in it and it will scan to PC before it does anything else.
AVG Free isn't going to help you out of this mess I think .. you may need specialist tools.
HijackThis first .. Do a scan and save a log file. See what's running.
Then you calculate what is needed to repair.

AV programs are not wonder tools you know ..
They are not designed to fix and clean up everything on an infected PC.
They can protect and remove certain things.

If you're scanning to clean up .. switch OFF System Restore first.

[Barquentine]

Thanks AlBags. It's not the free AVG. I bought the latest AVG disc since my AVG2009 expired. It loaded onto this laptop I'm using - but I had to uninstall the old AVG first manually. I imagined it would do that for me - then I read the instructions that came with it.
When I start my PC a dialogue box comes up asking if I want to renew my AVG - do you think if I just insert my new licence no. it will upgrade over the internet from their website without inserting the CD-Rom?