Malware program and internet connection problems

I am running Windows 7 Enterprise 32-bit on a Dell Latitude D630 laptop. It is two years old, and I switched from Vista to 7 six months ago. I have a wireless internet connection through a Linksys router, model #: WRT160N V2. I use Mozilla Firefox version 3 as my primary browser.

Now the problem. Recently I was online and while I was searching through web sites a "Virus Scanner" malware program installed itself to my computer. The program would not allow me to open task manager or the start bar, and it started closing active windows on me. The only real option that it would give me was to purchase the "full version" of the program. I performed a hard shutdown, rebooted, and brought up Task Manager before the malware booted. I located the EXE through the Task Manager processes list and deleted it from my computer, which destroyed the program.

I believed that for the most part it would not give me any further trouble. I can access web pages through Firefox, receive email through Mozilla Thunderbird, and the overall performance of my computer has not changed. However, two days ago I discovered that none of the other programs I use (Zune, Google Chrome, Google Earth, Valve's Steam, Internet Explorer 8, World of Warcraft Launcher, etc) will connect to the internet. As an example, when attempting to connect to Steam I get this Error Message: "Unable to connect to HTTP Proxy. Your proxy may be misconfigured or offline. -336". This problem is affecting every program on my system except for Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird.

Here are fixes I have tried so far.

-I reset my Winsock using the "Diagnose and Repair" through my Network Settings and manually through cmd, typing out the command to reset the Winsock.

-I ran a malware scan using Malwarebytes Anti-malware, which located and removed 5 trojans hidden in my registry, all associated with the fake anti-virus program.

-I ran a spybot scan using Spybot Search & Destroy, which located and removed two 2 bots hidden in my registry, also associated with the anti-virus program.

I am at a loss as to what further steps I can take. I would really appreciate any advice. Thanks

tw33k said:

My suggestion to everybody who gets infected like this is to format and reinstall. It's the only way to guarantee a clean system. If you've done the smart thing and imaged your drive, re-installation will take under 10 minutes. If not, now's a good time to think about it for the future.

I agree. This is not something you want to mess around with. Even if you don't have a backup image, a clean install will end up taking less time than trying to clean up the mess.

I had this happen to my friends computer and found it in the system restore too. So a clean install might be easier. I have seen on the net a fix for this but have not tried it. Suggest you get AdBlock Plus for your Firefox when you do next install.You might might consider Flash Block but am not exactly sure how its coming in to the system.Probably a small script.

Thanks everyone. There seems to be a general agreement on a clean install, so I will go with that.