My computer recently started having a problem. I called Dell tech support who said they couldn't help me and told me to call Microsoft and/or Norton. I called Microsoft and was on hold for over an hour, got to explain my problem three or four times to different people as they transferred me around and finally the last person disconnected me and did not call back. Trust me it is not as fun as it sounds. So instead of calling back I e-mailed Microsoft with my problem...no reply. So I am wondering if I can get help here...
Here is my problem:
Three days ago two viruses tried to load them selves onto my computer. I run Norton Anti Virus 2004 (NAV) and AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition on Windows XP Home. Both programs, NAV and AVG, popped up saying they detected these files trying to be loaded and deleted them. The files where in my temporary internet folder so I deleted everything in there and deleted all backup files that NAV created in the quarantine folder. About 20 minutes later both programs, NAV and AVG, popped up saying they detected the viruses trying to load and again deleted them. At this point I ran a scan with NAV, AVG and Microsoft's AntiSpyware Beta 1. Nothing was detected and all programs are up to date. I then restarted my computer in Safe Mode and ran the virus scans again. This time NAV found three virus files and AVG found 1. I deleted all four files. When I restarted in normal mode everything seemed fine. The next night a window popped up in the Task Bar. It said that a file was corrupt. I can't remember the name of the file but I know that it started with "CH". I think the file name was about seven letters long and ended in .sys but I am not sure about this. I turned off my computer and then restarted it the next day. When windows was loading it began to try and fix the corrupt file (at least that is what it looked like it was doing). It went through a series of three steps to fix it. After it was done the welcome screen loaded as normal. But now I cannot see any text and only icons. What I mean is that on the welcome screen I could see the icon that is next to my name but not my name. Also on the bottom left where you would click the red button to put the computer into stand by, shut down or restart all you can see is the red button and not the text next to it. I logged into my computer and the same thing is happening again. On my desktop I can see all the icons for the shortcuts to my programs but the names of the programs are not underneath the icons. I clicked on the Start menu which will popup but you cannot see any text either. You cannot see the text All Programs in the Start menu. Next I opened Internet Explorer and again it is blank. My plan was to do a system restore but I can't see any text so I can't do a restore. I have two computers so I checked to see at about where the text is to see if I can try to guess and click on them to get to the system restore window but it will not allow me to click on the text which I cannot see. Next I tried to enter Safe Mode again to do another virus scan but when Safe Mode loads there is a window that pops up informing you that you are entering Safe Mode and you can click OK to continue but I cannot see the text in this popup box and I cannot see the button. Like before I tried clicking at the location of where the button should be but that does not work. So I cannot enter safe mode either. My only other guess would be to do a repair install. It seems that the viruses attacked a file that windows needed to display the text and buttons. Although if I do a repair install the virus may still be on my computer and the same thing will happen again. It seems the NAV and AVG can't detect this virus. So if this happens I may have to do a clean install. Any suggestions before I try the repair install?
Thanks for your help!!
-Commander
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