Need Help with possible Trojan Horse

[Jim]

My son is running a Windows XP Pro (with SP2) computer on a dial-up
connection. He has the Widows Firewall enabled plus Norton Antivirus 2005.



On three separate occasions over the past several months he has gotten what
appears to be a Trojan Horse. What happens is that a YES/NO dialog box pops
up in the middle of the screen after boot-up saying that Windows needs to be
activated. When you click YES to activate, it says Windows is already
activated and returns back to the dialog box. If you click NO, it also comes
back to the dialog box. That's as far as you can go!!!



I have been able to start in the Safe mode sometimes and Norton did show
several Trojans which were removed successfully. However, the system still
showed the same problem as above when I re-booted.



The only way I solved this problem was a complete reinstall of Windows, on
each of the three occasions.



Need some suggestions to prevent this in the future. One thing I suggested
is that he stop using hotmail - anything else would be greatly appreciated.
Redoing the system each time is a long process.




Jim

 

[Mark]

My son is running a Windows XP Pro (with SP2) computer on a dial-up
connection. He has the Widows Firewall enabled plus Norton Antivirus 2005.
On three separate occasions over the past several months he has gotten what
appears to be a Trojan Horse. What happens is that a YES/NO dialog box pops
up in the middle of the screen after boot-up saying that Windows needs to be
activated. When you click YES to activate, it says Windows is already
activated and returns back to the dialog box. If you click NO, it also comes
back to the dialog box. That's as far as you can go!!!
I have been able to start in the Safe mode sometimes and Norton did show
several Trojans which were removed successfully. However, the system still
showed the same problem as above when I re-booted.
The only way I solved this problem was a complete reinstall of Windows, on
each of the three occasions.
Need some suggestions to prevent this in the future. One thing I suggested
is that he stop using hotmail - anything else would be greatly appreciated.
Redoing the system each time is a long process.
Jim

Jim,

Some Trojans must be removed manually by booting in "Safe Mode". If you
know the name of the particular virus Norton hits on you can download a
cleaner from this page:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/tools.list.html

Sometimes Norton, McAfee, and PC-Cillin AVs don't find or clean
everything. Occasionally they can "false hit" too. I have had very good
luck with this program for two years now:

http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/

HTH (c;

 

[Jim]

Thanks for your response.

Jim,

Some Trojans must be removed manually by booting in "Safe Mode". If you
know the name of the particular virus Norton hits on you can download a
cleaner from this page:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/tools.list.html

Sometimes Norton, McAfee, and PC-Cillin AVs don't find or clean
everything. Occasionally they can "false hit" too. I have had very good
luck with this program for two years now:

http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/

HTH (c;

 

[Jim]

Thanks for your response Mark.

Jim,

Some Trojans must be removed manually by booting in "Safe Mode". If you
know the name of the particular virus Norton hits on you can download a
cleaner from this page:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/tools.list.html

Sometimes Norton, McAfee, and PC-Cillin AVs don't find or clean
everything. Occasionally they can "false hit" too. I have had very good
luck with this program for two years now:

http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/

HTH (c;