Avira just killed everything!

WOW!!!

Thanks for all the feedback. It's great to see this kind of community support. I really do appreciate all the replies.

What exactly happened: I re-installed XP, all my software and lastly the Avira. Immediately I got 25 warnings. Although there is the option to ignore them this option doesn't seem to do anything. The same warnings kept coming back. Really ridiculous warning too: explorer.exe, notepad.exe you know... normal stuff. Not one of the buttons in the start menu would work! Not even task manager. Avira would beep nonstop!!

I don't know which version I downloaded. I googled Avira, went to the first site listed and downloaded. It looked legit to me but I didn't really study it if you know what I mean.

I won't be using Avira again any time soon. Please recommend free antivirus and any other system software that might be handy.

I prefer scanning type A/V protection over realtime protection anyway "Malware bytes and Spybot S&D". I work over in the networking forum mostly and I'm here to tell you that at least half the neworking and sharing problems are caused by realtime A/V's.

I keep back ups of everything on 4 other machines which are offline most of the time. I agree, it's easier to reformatt to a fresh image than to try and deal with a realtime A/V or get rid of an infection. I never have any problems related to virus's anyway, Windows 7 is infinately more secure than either Vista or XP.

bigseb said:

WOW!!!

Thanks for all the feedback. It's great to see this kind of community support. I really do appreciate all the replies.

What exactly happened: I re-installed XP, all my software and lastly the Avira. Immediately I got 25 warnings. Although there is the option to ignore them this option doesn't seem to do anything. The same warnings kept coming back. Really ridiculous warning too: explorer.exe, notepad.exe you know... normal stuff. Not one of the buttons in the start menu would work! Not even task manager. Avira would beep nonstop!!

I don't know which version I downloaded. I googled Avira, went to the first site listed and downloaded. It looked legit to me but I didn't really study it if you know what I mean.

I won't be using Avira again any time soon. Please recommend free antivirus and any other system software that might be handy.

If you want a really good AV/internet security suite, try Comodo Internet Security.
It's a total download of about 150 MB to get fully updated, but I recommend it to anyone who asks. Another way to protect yourself on the internet is to download firefox and install the adblock plus and noscript add-ons. I found noscript to be the only free, effective defense against rogue AV driveby downloads

bigseb said:

WOW!!!

Thanks for all the feedback. It's great to see this kind of community support. I really do appreciate all the replies.

What exactly happened: I re-installed XP, all my software and lastly the Avira. Immediately I got 25 warnings. Although there is the option to ignore them this option doesn't seem to do anything. The same warnings kept coming back. Really ridiculous warning too: explorer.exe, notepad.exe you know... normal stuff. Not one of the buttons in the start menu would work! Not even task manager. Avira would beep nonstop!!

I don't know which version I downloaded. I googled Avira, went to the first site listed and downloaded. It looked legit to me but I didn't really study it if you know what I mean.

I won't be using Avira again any time soon. Please recommend free antivirus and any other system software that might be handy.

Well, if you don´t know that you really used Avira, then don´t say it´s bad...

Actually, Avira in one of the best Antivirus-programs.
The fact is that Avira has got VERY good results in every test i´ve seen, and i have my eyes on VB100 & A/V-comparatives etc.

this is the REAL Avira: Anti virus for Linux, Windows and more with firewall, antispam, recovery security - Avira AntiVir

i suggest you try it BEFORE making comments about it....

Product FRED said:

- Sometimes viruses like to hide in your System Restore backups. If you remove a virus and it keeps coming back, it's likely that it's hiding in a backup. Delete the backups by disabling and then re-enabling system restore.

FYI, if an infection appears to keep returning, unless an infected System Restore point has been used, it is more likely that it was never completely removed in the first place.

I do agree that it is good to create a fresh restore point after cleaning and then clearing the old restore points. Best method is via "More Options" with the DiskCleanup tool.

hackerman1 said:

bigseb said:

WOW!!!

Thanks for all the feedback. It's great to see this kind of community support. I really do appreciate all the replies.

What exactly happened: I re-installed XP, all my software and lastly the Avira. Immediately I got 25 warnings. Although there is the option to ignore them this option doesn't seem to do anything. The same warnings kept coming back. Really ridiculous warning too: explorer.exe, notepad.exe you know... normal stuff. Not one of the buttons in the start menu would work! Not even task manager. Avira would beep nonstop!!

I don't know which version I downloaded. I googled Avira, went to the first site listed and downloaded. It looked legit to me but I didn't really study it if you know what I mean.

I won't be using Avira again any time soon. Please recommend free antivirus and any other system software that might be handy.

Well, if you don´t know that you really used Avira, then don´t say it´s bad...

Actually, Avira in one of the best Antivirus-programs.
The fact is that Avira has got VERY good results in every test i´ve seen, and i have my eyes on VB100 & A/V-comparatives etc.

this is the REAL Avira: Anti virus for Linux, Windows and more with firewall, antispam, recovery security - Avira AntiVir

i suggest you try it BEFORE making comments about it....

Actually I have been using Avira for a long time and never had any issues. But as long as there's a site out there that also claims to offer Avira with very little way of telling the difference from the real thing then I'll just steer clear of Avira.

The rogues have picked on more than just Avira to trick people into installing so the best advice I can give is to always go to the vendor site for the download/update link.

And just out of curiousity, which of these is the real one: Anti virus for Linux, Windows and more with firewall, antispam, recovery security - Avira AntiVir or Free antivirus - Avira AntiVir

A search from the Avira home page at Anti virus for Linux, Windows and more with firewall, antispam, recovery security - Avira AntiVir takes you to Avira Antivirus Solutions which has a link to Free antivirus - Avira AntiVir .

Thus, both are "real".

I seriously suspect that your problem was caused by one or more trojans on your computer, very possibly via a drive-by download. Be sure you update your computer, not only with Microsoft Updates, but 3rd party software as well.

Secunia is a good tool to check if your system is missing security updates or has insecure applications installed, visit OSI - Consumer - Products . The Secunia Software Inspector runs through your browser with no installation or download required and does the following:

• Detects insecure versions of applications installed
• Verifies that all Microsoft patches are applied
• Assists you in updating your system and applications