Identify the virus, please

[ecoli]

Hi guys. Last night I suffered from a viral attack. I think the source was from AIM, from a friends computer. So anyway, the start menu and the whole bottom toolbar is out. I can't click on anything downthere (though desktop icons are fine) I can use the start menu by pressing the windows key, and I can restore minimized documents with task manager. So, its more of an annoyance then anything else, because nothing else is wrong. The real problem is that the virus isn't showing up when I run Noron anti-virus (latest software, and I'm pretty sure the definitions are up to date.) Can anybody help overcome this latest illness?

[BobbyJoeCool]

Is the bar gone completely? If it is, you can move the mouse close to the bottom and click and drag it up (much like you do to make a cell larger or smaller in Microsoft Excel) (you can make the bar disapear by doing this the other way, and make it take up the whole screen by going up)...

 

Otherwise, can't help ya Sundance...

[sungmintd8]

Could be a process? Or a hidden process? I have a program to shut down those annoying hidden ones, I got from a friend. It works fine. You just need to start it up everytime. It could be spyware, also. It could be a number of things, including that the screen could be inlarged on the monitor, and the bar can be brought down, to where you can't see it. Probably not, theres always the chance though.

[ecoli]

I can see the bar, no problem. But it doesn't respond to my mouse clicks, right or left.

[Nevermore]

Open task manager. Is explorer.exe running? If not, start it in 'new task'.

[ecoli]

yes, explorer is running.

[X facter]

I think the source was from AIM, from a friends computer.

 

Did it happen to be a random message with a link that you then downloaded something from? And your friend had no idea how it got there?

[ecoli]

Did it happen to be a random message with a link that you then downloaded something from? And your friend had no idea how it got there?

 

of course... I forgot about all the warnings.

 

The only reason why I think it might be caused by something else, is that the problem didn't start until the next day after I got the message. Nothing wrong until today.

[ecoli]

it seems a spyware check fixed my problems... I wonder what was the source.

[5614]

The spyware report or log should tell you that, if it is setup to keep a log of what is scans/deletes.

 

I suppose what you can conclude is that is it was some kind of spyware (probably not actually a virus) and that it was only fully activated after the computer was rebooted, ie. you have to restart for some newly installed programs to run properly & that's why it affected you the day after you recieved it.

 

^ That's guess work btw.