1) Back up valuable data. If the virus or spyware is deeply imbedded in the system, or the cleanup does not go well, your system may need to be reformatted and reinstalled..

2) Try automated detection and cleanup. Some spyware and viruses disable scanners or prevent them from working properly, so you may be infected even if you have a spyware scanner installed. Download and run the latest versions of Ad Aware and Spybot S&D and try one or more online scans from the next post.

3) Try a special-purpose cleanup tool. There are specialized fixes such as CWShredder for removing CoolWebSearch. If a scanner reports that you have a particular spyware or virus but is unable to clean it, see whether one of the manual tools like McAfee Stinger can clean it. The download pages for these tools (see next post) list the problems they can fix.

4) Try HijackThis last. If you have tried the automated tools but still think you may have spyware or a virus, you can post a HijackThis scan (only!) in our HijackThis section. Because HJT requires special training to interpret the results and can take some time for even a knowledgable person to interpret, only post a scan after having tried the automated solutions. Be sure you have downloaded the latest version of HijackThis before running it and posting your scan.

Hello. It appears that there is rogue security software installed on the computer. Follow these directions and if your problem isn’t taken care of (or if issues still remain) then please post a HijackThis log in the appropriate section of this forum (directions are located in the sticky at the top of the page).

Please download Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware to your desktop.

• Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
• At the end, be sure a checkmark is placed next to:
  • Update Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware
  • Launch Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware
• Then click Finish.
• If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version.
• Once the program has loaded, select Perform full scan, then click Scan.
• When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
• Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
• When completed, a log will open in Notepad. Close the Notepad file.
• The log file is saved here and will be named like this: C:Documents and Settings<your username>Application DataMalwarebytesMalwarebytes’ Anti-MalwareLogsmbam-log-date (time).txt

Please download and install Rogue Remover Free from Malwarebytes onto your desktop.

• Double-click rr-free-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program and make sure the box next to Launch is selected.
• When prompted, please update the program.
• Hit scan and when it has finished post the results of the scan in your next reply.