AVG on disk??

[James Curts]

My brother has a computer which has been partially disabled by a virus for
several weeks. The virus has disabled NAV and his browser which I beleive is
IE preventing him from getting online and accessing Symantec or anyone else
for help. Offline the computer functions except for the restore function.

When accessing the internet some unknown file starts printing 20 or so pages
of machine language code.

This is an XP home OS on a Gateway machine

As he lives in Huron SD there isn't even a shop he can take it into for
help.

Is there something like AVG I can download to a CD and send to him that will
help locate and eliminate this virus? If so will it run from the CD or must
it be loaded on the machine?

Thanks for any help you may have

Jim

 

[Lance Joiner]

Here's a program that might help.. http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/ After
running it maybe he can get his NAV working to do a full scan. Has he tried
booting in safe mode and scanning his system?

 

[garyd53]

Sounds like the gaobot virus. It adds a bunch of junk to the "hosts
file that prevents you from getting to anti-virus sites.

Have your brother search his hard drive for the filename "hosts" wit
no extension, then delete the file. He just change the name of th
"hosts" file to "hosts.bak" or something like that if he is worrie
about deleting it.

The "hosts" file is just a text file that the TCP/IP protocol uses fo
host name resolution. Unfortunately, TCP/IP checks the "hosts" fil
before it checks the DNS servers. That means that if you have an entr
in the "hosts" file like '127.0.0.1 www.symantec.com', your syste
will not get the correct DNS host name resolution for Symantec, and yo
will not get to their site.

The "hosts" file is found in the C:\WINDOWS folder on Win98 systems an
the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC folder on WinXP systems.

Good luck
-
garyd5

 

[James Curts]

Thank you Gary, and others, I will pass this all on to him and hopefully he
can sort it out.

Jim