Something went wrong on my comp after downloading from limewire....

[Thority]

Hi,

I was trying to get the program Sony Vegas for my computer and my dad suggested that I download it off of Limewire but not to open the file in case of a virus... he told me he would open up the file onto one of his computers to see if the file contained any viruses.

But me being as curious as I am, opened the file onto my three year old computer... and the file definitely contained some sort of virus, but I don't think that's the only reason my computer has gone bad.

Basically, after I had opened the file, I got scared so I ran a virus check, and deleted everything I had downloaded. My virus check said it had deleted the Trojan virus and other smaller kinds and my computer was back to normal for the rest of the night.

I didn't go back on it until two days later, yesterday. When I'm at the menu where I can choose from different accounts to go on (not sure what that's called) I click on mine, write my password, but then it gives me two messages saying "the application failed to initialize properly (0x0000005). Click on OK to terminate the application." This also happens when I try to change the background on my computer and when I try to go on add/remove programs, So I can't remove Limewire...

I was still able to sign in on my account, but all I got was my background, there was no icons, no start menu or anything. I pressed CTRL+ALT+DELETE and pressed new task and was able to get onto any of my folders or browsers. So I came upon this site, and read one topic that had a similar problem to mine and they said to press new task and write "explorer.exe" so I did and it returned everything.

Now, the next day, it does the same thing all over again, no background, the messages, so I did "explorer.exe" and it worked again, but I'm not gonna want to do that everything I sign onto my computer... I still can't go on add/removed programs OR change my background... which is the other reason I think my computer has gotten a virus or something...

About a month a go, I changed my background to a famous soccer player, and my computer was fine. Then, all of a sudden, Fabio Cannavaro was gone, and my background was now blue. I didn't really think there was anything wrong, so I left it the way it was.

When I turn off my computer, the Fabio Cannavaro background comes back for a few seconds, but there's no desktop icons or anything then my computer shuts off.

I dunno if that has anything to do with why my computer isn't working, but I thought I'd put it out there...

 

[4Ryan6]

Unfortunately one of the first things the Trojan does is disable you AV protection and whatever running Spyware protection you have, thus the name Trojan Virus, its invited into your computer and does its damage from the inside out.

The simplest way out of this problem is back up your important files immediately to an external HDD, you can scan it for virus's on another machine thats fully virus protected, it will not be active at the time, but do not transfer any of the files from the External HDD until its declared virus free!!!

Then completely wipe the infected hardrive of all data [Ref 1] and completely reinstall the operating system from scratch and reload all your software back on the machine.

The longer you allow the Trojan to stay on your machine the more chance you have of serious damage, there are some Trojans that can corrupt your hardrive permanently, so the best and safest route is to give your machine an Enema and get rid of it period.

There are other routes you can take like running DOS based virus scans using an NTFS reader to allow it, but you'll need a clean machine to construct the Bootable CD to do it, [Ref 2] however in my experience just backup and destroy the freakin thing is the best course of action and in the long run takes less overall time.

Ref 2 may be the best alternative for you if you plan on downloading and opening these types of files in the future, just make sure you follow all instructions in the creation process of the Bootable CD and update the included AV and Spyware software packages.

[Ref 1] = Using a hardrive diagnostic utility for your specific HDD, acquired from either a CD in a retail purchased HDD, or downloaded from your HDD manufacturers website, to write zeros to the entire HDD. Diagnostic disks call it different things, some Zero Fill, some Disk Wipe, some Low Level Format, Etc., they all do the same thing, they completely write over the entire HDD, including the Boot Sector, restoring it to the way it came from the factory.

[Ref 2] = http://www.ubcd4win.com/howto.htm

Good Luck Man!

 

[itadakimasu]

its funny that your dad recommended limewire....


limewire is trash and by now people should know before thinking of using it that its not a good idea to even install it.