games disappeared

[shadowmom]

Help, I was infected with millions of trojans, malware, etc. I was trying to
get rid of them and think I inadvertently deleted something on my computer:
add/remove programs. My preloaded games were no longer there. I don't
remember what I removed, but now I am having difficulty getting on IE, and
also outlook express (my email). What can I do to solve this problem. I
have by the way removed all the trojans, viruses, and malware (so my computer
states), and the reason was I had password stealers, and pop up galores. I
have narrowed it down to the limewire site where my son was going to get
music. I just want my computer back to the way it was. I miss my games.

 

[philo]

Help, I was infected with millions of trojans, malware, etc. I was trying
to
get rid of them and think I inadvertently deleted something on my
computer:
add/remove programs. My preloaded games were no longer there. I don't
remember what I removed, but now I am having difficulty getting on IE, and
also outlook express (my email). What can I do to solve this problem. I
have by the way removed all the trojans, viruses, and malware (so my
computer
states), and the reason was I had password stealers, and pop up galores.
I
have narrowed it down to the limewire site where my son was going to get
music. I just want my computer back to the way it was. I miss my games.

Backup your data
then do a factory restore

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Help, I was infected with millions of trojans, malware, etc. I was trying to
get rid of them and think I inadvertently deleted something on my computer:
add/remove programs. My preloaded games were no longer there. I don't
remember what I removed, but now I am having difficulty getting on IE, and
also outlook express (my email). What can I do to solve this problem. I
have by the way removed all the trojans, viruses, and malware (so my computer
states), and the reason was I had password stealers, and pop up galores. I
have narrowed it down to the limewire site where my son was going to get
music. I just want my computer back to the way it was. I miss my games.

If you had "millions of trojans, malware, etc.," and even if
"millions" is an exaggeration, trying to get of them is a waste of
name. Any time you have a lot of infections, your chances of
successfully correcting the situation are extremely low.

You need to clean install Windows.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Help, I was infected with millions of trojans, malware, etc. I was trying
to
get rid of them and think I inadvertently deleted something on my
computer:
add/remove programs. My preloaded games were no longer there. I don't
remember what I removed, but now I am having difficulty getting on IE, and
also outlook express (my email). What can I do to solve this problem. I
have by the way removed all the trojans, viruses, and malware (so my
computer
states), and the reason was I had password stealers, and pop up galores.
I
have narrowed it down to the limewire site where my son was going to get
music. I just want my computer back to the way it was. I miss my games.

You'll probably spend more time trying to fix this than you'd spend backing
up your data and restoring the system. Be sure that your restore deletes
and recreates the system partition and doesn't just format.

If you just try to make do with fixing it, you will wind up with an install
that you can't be sure of. With a heavily compromised system, you can only
be sure of the results by fully wiping the drive.

Limewire is a prime source of malware. One of the infection paths is via
the preview function and bogus MP3 files. Don't allow MP3s to be previewed,
and before playing them, scan the destination folder with up-to-date
antivirus software.

You might want to get another inexpensive, sacrificial machine that's only
used for downloading and is quarantied from other systems.

HTH
-pk