I am writing this from a client's house. Typically I wouldn't work on the site while I am on the clock but since I have to sit and wait for they repair scan to finish, I might as well tell you why I'm here.
It all began with a call this morning. My client said that she could move her mouse but it wouldn't let her click on anything. Luckily I had time available to see her in the afternoon.
When I got here I took the computer into safe mode where I discovered two strange things.
1. A windows kept popping up telling me that Windows Explorer had a problem and needed to be restarted. Followed immediately by a window that said that the problem couldn't be repaired. Or vice versa. I don't remember which order the windows were coming up.
2. There were strange "security" program icons on the desktop. I immediately expected spyware.
I rolled the computer back to a few days ago before the problem started. Now the computer would get me further into regular mode but the Explorer errors kept popping up.
A new icon showed up on the desktop that confirmed my spyware suspicions. It was a link to a "program" called "SpyBlocked."
I read about the problem by Googling it from my Treo. It appears to be a spyware/trojan virus that causes problems in Windows XP but brings Vista to its knees. Especially on systems running AVG.
Microsoft's support site said that the only known fix and tool for the problem was to download and install a free antispyware program called SUPERantispyware .
Luckily they had a second computer where I could download the program. However, downloading it onto my flash drive was only part of the process. Since the virus caused Windows Explorer to lockup and restarted every 15 seconds or so, I had to quickly open, find and start the install before Explorer would restart. Luckily, programs that were running weren't affected by the restart so I was able to install and run SUPERantispyware before.
The program successfully removed over 100 infected objects and the problem went away.
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