Does it appear that I am infected?

Jacee said:

Go into Programs and Features, uninstall GenericAskToolbar/Ask toolbar
Next, navigate to
c:\program files (x86)\ask.com <--delete this folder

Now, go to VirSCAN.org - Free Multi-Engine Online Virus Scanner v1.02, Supports 36 AntiVirus Engines! then upload and scan each of these files individually:
c:\windows\system32\25BC.tmp
c:\windows\system32\F06A.tmp
c:\windows\system32\5A72.tmp
c:\windows\system32\DF49.tmp
c:\windows\system32\256C.tmp

You may have to show hidden files and folders in order for you to find them....
Click on 'folder options' in the control Panel, 'view' tab, Under the Hidden files and folders section select the radio button labeled Show hidden files and folders.
Remove the checkmark from the checkbox labeled Hide extensions for known file types.
Remove the checkmark from the checkbox labeled Hide protected operating system files.
Press the Apply

Hello Jacee,
After unhiding everything you've noted above, I could find no *.tmp files in the C:\Windows\System32 folder. Am I in trouble??
glennc

Jacee said:

Hello Jacee,
After unhiding everything you've noted above, I could find no *.tmp files in the C:\Windows\System32 folder. Am I in trouble??
glennc

Nope, that's why I wanted you to run TFC

Please uninstall the AskToolbar and delete the folder ... it's foistware that came bundled with Foxit Reader.

You have several resource hogs, in the way of Anti-virus and Anti-spyware running on your computer.
McAfee is the biggest one, and it may be causing the problems you're experiencing.

You are a most excellent kind person. Truly. I did delete Ask hiding as Foxit Toolbar prior to the scan. I understand that McAfee is a hog, what other hogs if I might ask do you consider that I have? I know I'm doing a shouldn't do by running multiple McAfee and MSE, but I don't have the knowledge to configure MSE properly and I like the ease of use of McAfee. The only other thing I have running is Threatfire, which I was led to believe is supposed to be run with your regular protection. Secunia has been very helpful in keeping me updated and patched properly. But I believe in your abilities and those of richc46 to consider change.
So I am now safe enough to make a system image of my "system"???
Thanks again pals.
glennc

Hi
I will admit that I am not on the same league as Jacee. So I am not going even to try to hijack this topic from her.

But I will just wanted to point out some little details:

1. As far as I can see you are running both Adobe Reader and Foxit reader. They acomplish the same task, so just chose one and remove other one. presonal opinion: keep foxit and remobe Adobe reader
2. Do you really need Auslogics defragmentation software? Windows 7 defragmentation is nice enough in my opinion. But its your choice.
3. I don't recommend you running both MSE and Mcafee together. Just chose one of them and remove another one. My advice keeps MSE and remove Mcafee.
4. Monitor performance of ThreatFire and decide if it is heavy for you or not for yourself.

glennc said:

I know I'm doing a shouldn't do by running multiple McAfee and MSE, but I don't have the knowledge to configure MSE properly and I like the ease of use of McAfee.

MSE really does not need configuring. However, if your preference is McAfee, you should uninstall MSE to avoid conflicts between two anti-virus programs.

jav said:

Hi
I will admit that I am not on the same league as Jacee. So I am not going even to try to hijack this topic from her.

But I will just wanted to point out some little details:

1. As far as I can see you are running both Adobe Reader and Foxit reader. They acomplish the same task, so just chose one and remove other one. presonal opinion: keep foxit and remobe Adobe reader
2. Do you really need Auslogics defragmentation software? Windows 7 defragmentation is nice enough in my opinion. But its your choice.
3. I don't recommend you running both MSE and Mcafee together. Just chose one of them and remove another one. My advice keeps MSE and remove Mcafee.
4. Monitor performance of ThreatFire and decide if it is heavy for you or not for yourself.

Howdy jav,
Thanks for your input and any advice. I am using foxit because of the current problem with Adobe, I am getting tired of Adobe. Auslogic does an optimize which I don't believe windows defrag does. I know I shouldn't be running MSE and McAfee at the same time but I have 2 years on my McAfee subscription and don't trust it enough to run alone. MSE is well thought of on this forum, but I find it too difficult to handle and since I can't configure it correctly, I don't trust the default settings, and I think it is also a major target of hackers. Threatfire doesn't seem to do that much slow down and it does catch stuff that McAfee and MSE lets through or it gets them first.
Appreciate your input!
glennc

With the help I've received, I did an immediate Macrium Image. Safe and new. Interesting about the not backing up malware, I wonder if that is true??
glennc


[QUOTE=Maxxwire;969393]

glennc said:

Maxxwire said:

Thanks Maxxwire,
I am using Macrium. Just didn't have a new enough one that I wanted to restore without proof of infection, if possible.
glennc

I'm sorry to hear that. Macrium Reflect has saved my computer in crisis situations on many occasion. I hope that you get your current situation rectified and you are able to have sparkling clean Reflect Image Backups to use in the future.

I did make a huge mistake once in Vista and made a Reflect Backup Image of my C Drive forgetting that there were 24 Downloading Trojans in the A Squared Quarantine, but when I restored the Image all of the Trojans were gone from Quarantine and the Image scanned completely clean. When I posted about this I was told that this happened because Reflect does not back up Malware. I do not know if this is absolutely true and I don't know if that is the correct reason for what happened, but I did see it happen in that one case.

~Maxx~
.

Corrine said:

glennc said:

I know I'm doing a shouldn't do by running multiple McAfee and MSE, but I don't have the knowledge to configure MSE properly and I like the ease of use of McAfee.

MSE really does not need configuring. However, if your preference is McAfee, you should uninstall MSE to avoid conflicts between two anti-virus programs.

Corrine,
Thank you for your advice. I know that it is considered bad to do what I am doing. But without knowing it I've been doing it for over 5 years with different AV and antimalware and have never been infected. I have never noticed any conflict. So although I know intrinsically it is wrong I find it hard to change something that is working. I've yet to receive any specific information as to the reason for the issues of using two programs running. Thanks again.
glennc