Short Version: After using Avast to remove almost 70 high-severity viruses that suddenly appeared on my other computer, my Windows Vista license seems to be no longer considered "genuine." I've got the Vista repair CD in there, but don't know what to do next. Also of note: The virus symptoms suddenly appeared after visiting a link to an article on www.science20.com.
Long Version: So, I was doing some online debating (what fun...), and some troll decided to present his "argument" in the form of a link to an article on Science 2.0. I had seen exactly one article on that site prior to that, and the information that article was dubious at best, but I figured I'd look click on the link anyway. After doing so, the page took a while to load, and when it did, the page contents didn't look suspicious (though the article's claims were dubious), but my computer started lagging immediately. At first, I figured it was probably Adobe Flash Player, which can cause the browser to lag on the laptop I'm using right now; however, opening the task manager showed that the process wasn't even running.
At that point, I realized that I probably had some malware, so I started a full system scan on Avast. After the scan was complete, there were about 67 or so high-severity viruses (which is surprising, since my previous routine scan wasn't that long ago), and after using the automatic repair option to fix them all, I was given the option of rebooting and doing a boot-time scan. After leaving that alone for a while and coming back when it was finished, I went back to my computer, and noticed a peculiar message on the lower-right corner of my screen, saying my copy of Windows Vista was not genuine. At this moment, I've got the Vista Repair CD loaded into the system, and it's idling as I try to find a solution. I have no idea what other damage, if any, may have happened, so any tips on that would be appreciated.
Normally, I'd look for the solution myself, but I've been going through a lot lately: I have had an extremely difficult time trying to figure out how to work with some of the more finicky aspects of programming do-while loops in Java, a task which I've found more mentally painful than my recent debates about formal science against students of Nietzschean philosophy (hint: Friedrich Nietzsche didn't believe in the objective existence of anything non-physical, including the subject matter of formal sciences such as logic; come to think of it, that might be why he contradicted himself so much) and users of Hastings Rashdall's moral argument alike (nothing like a war on two fronts, amirite?), and while all of this is happening, I'm about a month into an episode of insomnia, stacked on top of my chronic sleep apnea... At this point, I'm ready to skip the whole process of trying the many varieties of keyword combinations in at least several dozens of web searches, and just get right to the part where I let someone else hold my hand and tell me exactly what to do.
Long Version: So, I was doing some online debating (what fun...), and some troll decided to present his "argument" in the form of a link to an article on Science 2.0. I had seen exactly one article on that site prior to that, and the information that article was dubious at best, but I figured I'd look click on the link anyway. After doing so, the page took a while to load, and when it did, the page contents didn't look suspicious (though the article's claims were dubious), but my computer started lagging immediately. At first, I figured it was probably Adobe Flash Player, which can cause the browser to lag on the laptop I'm using right now; however, opening the task manager showed that the process wasn't even running.
At that point, I realized that I probably had some malware, so I started a full system scan on Avast. After the scan was complete, there were about 67 or so high-severity viruses (which is surprising, since my previous routine scan wasn't that long ago), and after using the automatic repair option to fix them all, I was given the option of rebooting and doing a boot-time scan. After leaving that alone for a while and coming back when it was finished, I went back to my computer, and noticed a peculiar message on the lower-right corner of my screen, saying my copy of Windows Vista was not genuine. At this moment, I've got the Vista Repair CD loaded into the system, and it's idling as I try to find a solution. I have no idea what other damage, if any, may have happened, so any tips on that would be appreciated.
Normally, I'd look for the solution myself, but I've been going through a lot lately: I have had an extremely difficult time trying to figure out how to work with some of the more finicky aspects of programming do-while loops in Java, a task which I've found more mentally painful than my recent debates about formal science against students of Nietzschean philosophy (hint: Friedrich Nietzsche didn't believe in the objective existence of anything non-physical, including the subject matter of formal sciences such as logic; come to think of it, that might be why he contradicted himself so much) and users of Hastings Rashdall's moral argument alike (nothing like a war on two fronts, amirite?), and while all of this is happening, I'm about a month into an episode of insomnia, stacked on top of my chronic sleep apnea... At this point, I'm ready to skip the whole process of trying the many varieties of keyword combinations in at least several dozens of web searches, and just get right to the part where I let someone else hold my hand and tell me exactly what to do.
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