I think i have a virus on my laptop

[Leapers]

Hi
I think i have a virus of some sort on my laptop as the other day a friend tried to download a game while i was at work and it didn't work so thought nothing of it, but i think it was a dodgey website although he says he got it from a friend who it worked fine for!
but my laptop won't let me access my emails although on the house computer i can get on them, it has also stopped my anti-virus software opening (I use sophos) but also when i try to google anything to do with anti-virus software it won't open the web pages saying internet explorer cannot display this page, and i have tried google chrome and that will not open either.
I don't know what to do to fix it as my computer friend has moved away.
Anyone have any ideas?
thanks

[Leapers]

Anjust thought also that my control panel security will not open and nor will the bit to uninstall a program, and when i try to open an anti-virus website it comes up with www.kqzyfj.com in the tab before the fail page comes up.

[vivandorron]

Are you paying for 'Sophos' or having a Trial Run?.

If you are on a trial run I would suggest you remove it and download 'Microsoft Security Essentials' (Free MSE) along with the free edition of 'Malwarebytes' and give both a run on your computer and then report back in this thread.

http://www.microsoft..../pc-security/mse.aspx

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Ron.

[Huderon]

You could try either the Kaspersky rescue disk from http://support.kasper...om/viruses/rescuedisk or the Avira rescue disk from http://www.avira.com/...antivir-rescue-system

You'll need to download one (or both) on a clean computer, burn to CD then boot the infected machine from the CD to run the software.

Avira update their one daily (sometimes more than once a day), but reading the Kaspersky information it seems that you might need to update it before running - the information in links on that page is not too clear.

From what you say in your post, it is possible that once the machine is clean, you won't be able to get into Task Manager (or it's equivalent on more recent versions of Windows) afterwards - there are viruses around which change settings in your registry to prevent access to stop you from killing the processes they run. I did find a tool which changes the settings back after I had an infection like that, but I can't recall what it was. If that does happen when you have cleaned the machine, post again and I'll see if I can find it again.

[whiskeryron]

Sorry but couldn't resist this. Is your virus anything like the bug this guy found on his laptop ?.

http://tinypic.com/r/1zzlt/6

WR.

[Huderon]

I hope I never come across a bug like that one WR !

Leapers, the software for sorting out access to things like Task Manager is called RRT. It's a couple of years since I needed to use it, but the demo version, which has a lot of restrictions, is free for personal use and is what I used to reset permissions to Task Manager and the like. The site is http://www.sergiwa.co...efile.php?cid=2&lid=1

[Leapers]

Thanks Ron and Huderon for your suggestions but one of the problems is that I cannot open pages like you have suggested it always comes up with page not found or internet explorer cannot open this page etc so I can't access them to get it scanned or download any new software. Do you think it would be worth just taking it to somewhere that fixes computers to have a look?
And Whiskey Ron if it was one of those I would be much happier as i quite like beetles!

[Huderon]

Well, IF you don't have access to another computer which you can use to download and burn a rescue disk on, AND there is nothing on your laptop which you want to save (documents, photos, software etc.) you could try putting the laptop back to it's original factory settings, or in the worst case, reinstall the operating system and all your software from scratch, reformatting the drive in the process. There should be some information about how to do that in the documentation you got with the laptop.

Somewhere like PC World or a local computer shop may be able to help, but it's also possible that they will take the, for them, easy route and either reset the computer to it's factory settings or reformat the drive and reinstall Windows for you.

I'd still try the rescue disk route first. See if you can get a friend to download and burn one for you, or if the tech people at work will do one for you. At least that way you have a chance of saving any important files before using the nuclear option of reformat and reinstall.

Whatever you do, don't try saving files before getting rid of the virus - if you put them onto a CD, a USB drive or an external drive with the laptop as it is, the virus will almost certainly put itself on them, then re-infect your laptop when you access them again.

[krytal-1024]

1.please go to the control panel to check if there are some unknown programs added without publisher, time, or other information.
2. please press Ctrl and Delete and Alt key together, and search the all sunning processes on the Task Manager , and check if have malicious processes.
if you don't know how to do that, and have any questions. please come to teesupport 24/7 online computer center to get help.