Virus removed desktop!

[Guest]

Hello. A virus I recently removed left my with a white background, icons,
and a start menu. I cannot select a picture for my desktop, whether I do it
from Microsoft Plus, right-clicking on a pix and selecting Set as wallpaper.
When I restart there is a button to restore active desktop, then my picture
shows, then it goes all white. When I end explorer.exe the picture shows,
but no start menu or anything. Please help or refer to the board that this
is most appropriate for.

Thanks

 

[Thorsten Matzner]

Hello. A virus I recently removed left my with a white background, icons,
and a start menu. I cannot select a picture for my desktop, whether I do it
from Microsoft Plus, right-clicking on a pix and selecting Set as wallpaper.
When I restart there is a button to restore active desktop, then my picture
shows, then it goes all white. When I end explorer.exe the picture shows,
but no start menu or anything. Please help or refer to the board that this
is most appropriate for.

Windows seems to be seriously broken. I would reinstall, but first
make sure, that the virus really has gone away.
"How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP"
(http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315341)

 

[Guest]

this is a common enough virus at the moment - its actually malware and a
rootkit trojan .
1 turn off active desktop and web bbits for your desktop
2 go to the alwil avast website and download the home version of their AV (
its the cleanest ) - NB norton and macafee cant remove this - also download
adaware se - run both -
3 let avast to a boot scan ( this removes the low level dos rootklit
4 - delete the desktop .html or edit it ( its in your windows directory)
the malware locks this file using the windows file protection which is
awkward to remove ( and to be honest only needs to be done if you really know
what you are doing)

NB - DO NOT use a restore point if you have them switched on as the
rootkit part of this infect all previous restore points .

After this get a firewall like kerio 2.15 and keep adaware se and also look
into buying nod32 antivirus or using the free version of alwil avast

drop me a note if you need more help - happy to vnc into your machine and
do it if ya need : ) done about 40 of these in the past week