Whoo-hoo !
Whoo-hoo ... I think I have it fixed !!
What happened was ... I was in MSN, checking out who was online, and a message popped up from a friend, and said something like ..."check out your photos I found on the internet", then offered a link. Well, this link included my hotmail address as part of it, so automatically, without thinking, I clicked on it ... oops, it started downloading something to my computer. It was a virus, or worm, or malware, or something, which played funny buggers with some files ... not critical, or multiplying, or exceptionally nasty ... just really, really annoying. My Windows Defender picked up that something odd was on the computer, and cleaned it (apparently). It stopped my registry editor to work (I noticed this when I was trying to do a cleanup), and some other cool clean-up programs, and it stopped me accessing any websites which would offer fixes to this problem (Symantec, McAfee, and a few others). It also turned off my System Restore. My anti-virus software didn't pick it up, either. It was a very clever critter ... it hid itself in my files, and I had to search for it. It was called "Isass" ... not friendly at all. But I found it, and (hopefully) destroyed it ... nyah-ha-ha !!
I have heard from a few people that something similar had popped up on their computers, but they had the sense not to click on the link (unlike me LOL).
Anyway, to cut a long story short ... I have spent the past 2 days trying to get rid of it ... I even was resigned to reformatting the whole computer. But, this evening, I seem to have found the hidden files in the registry and elsewhere in my Windows System 32 folder, have deleted them, and did some clean up, and it seems OK. I have temporarily uninstalled MSN ... will put it back when I am confident the problem is definately fixed !!
Thus, I think my computer is all better !! I am now smiling again. Here's hoping that tomorrow morning when I turn it on again, that everything is still OK (I have restarted it a number of times, and all seems OK ... fingers are still crossed, though !!)
So, please remain aware, friends.
Oh, yeah ... please pop on over and visit my friend Melinda's new blog. She is a wonderful person, and a fellow Bonnie Doon chick. She would love you to visit her.
Take care,
8 comments:
Boy, they get more clever all the time, literally worming their way into our computers to do their nasty stuff! I wish there was some way to deflect their worms and viruses and trojans back on the destructive fools who start them!
Glad you seem to have your computer cleaned up. I hate dealing with that kind of stuff. I am so not "techie" when it comes to that kind of thing. So far I have been lucky enough that my antivirus programs have caught most of my infections and I've been able to deal with the rest of it myself. If I get any of the really bad news stuff I'll have to have someone else work on it for me.
I'm crossing my fingers that I don't have to deal with anything like that anytime soon.
Anyway, hope all is well with you and yours, C. :-)
Love and hugs,
Diane
well, this is very interesting, because the day before yesterday i saw a similar message, BUT, i did not recognize the name of the person, so i reported it as SPAM, ...WHEH! glad i did...i cannot deal with any more computer troubles at the moment. It is now 7:45 a.m. and i have been awake and up since about 5:00...working and setting up my repaired printer...but soon i am going to turn my computer off because it generates so much heat....so...
until later,
cheers for now,
pj
p.s. i'm glad you were able to get your computer cleaned up without too too much grief! good on ya mate!
YEAH FOR YOUR COMPUTER FIXED!!
oh that was me...
day
Almost forgot... I don't have my jewelry website any longer you can delete it.
Meow! For what it's worth, I had endless problems with MSN before I dumped them. I spent hours on end talking to a specialist in India most nights. Hope your experience is better than mine was.
A few years back I was talking with a friend on msn and I suddenly received this message from her about accepting a file of photos...I said, oh what photos are those...and she said what photos are you talking about?! lol We both realized it was a virus trying to get into our computers so I didn't click on the link thank goodness. If it would have come to me by email I would have probably accepted it because it was from someone I knew! Stupid things!!! Good for you for figuring out how to get rid of it...hope it's completely gone for you:-) xox
Glad you managed to fix your problem, Meow...ouch! That's dangerous!
Diane ... yep, they sure do get more and more clever ... and sneaky, too. I needed to do some real detective work to locate and fix this one !!
Dragonflyfilly ... glad you didn't click on it ... lucky you !!
Daybyday ... thank you.
Michael ... thanks. I've always been wary of MSN, but it was all going fine until then !
Pea ... lucky you didn't click on it, also. Mine came from someone I knew, but wasn't ... nasty.
Lee ... thank you.
Take care, play safe on your computers.
Hugs, Meow
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