I was attempting to follow the instructions outlined in “You Must Read This Before Posting A Hijackthis Log, Malware Cleaning Guide.” I hit a problem at step 1.
While in safe-mode I tried running AVG Anti-Spyware. It sort of started but before I even made it to the “settings” tab, it said it found an infected file. But the file name and location looked like the AVG exe file – it was named something like avgas.exe or something … sorry, I didn’t write it down.
That didn’t look right, so after several failed tries to get to the settings, I ended up using LavaSoft AdAware. It picked up 9 files. I believe those were quarantined but when I tried to delete them, I got a fatal error and a pretty blue screen.
So, reboot in safe-mode to try and run AVG. Still no dice. I rebooted in regular-mode and ran AVG. AVG found 4 items (5 traces). It took 4 hours to run. It did not save a log even though it’s set to save a log. That doesn’t seem right either …
My question is, do I need to run it again in safe mode, or can I proceed running “SUPERAntiSpyware Home Edition?” I should mention that I already started running this … it’s been 5 minutes and it’s already found 8 things.
Another question is, how in the world do I know it’s safe to run Windows Update? Especially when I need to connect to the internet each time to get these programs and their updates.
Thanks for the information on this web site. I wish I were more of a computer geek ... but I'm not, which makes this process completely painful.