About a week ago my PC got infected with the AVG Nation toolbar.
Initially using the guidance previously posted on MalwareTips to deal with this and then later with great help from MalwareTips Staff Member TwinHeadedEagle we managed to get rid of the toolbar. After running numerous tools - Malwarebytes, Farbar, aswMBR, HitmanPro, MSE, AdwCleaner - TwinHeadedEagle
declared that my PC was free of Malware.
Great but some odd Windows behaviour remains and TwinHeadedEagle said I should ask here for help.
Basically my log on account ("Pete", it's an admin account and there's only one account) seems to have lost permissions or access to various system folders. For example:
Desktop theme and wallpaper can be set but are not remembered between reboots.
Lots of desktop shortcuts have disappeared. I can find them in the expected folder (C:\Users\Pete\Desktop) but this clearly isn't read when Windows starts.
All Favorites have gone from IE (it's IE10). They are all in the expected folder (C:\Users\Pete\Favorites) but in IE there's nothing.
If I create a new favorite in IE it gets stored to C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\Favorites.
In IE all the sites I had blocked from storing cookies have gone (tools, internet options, privacy, sites, managed websites).
When MalwareBytes completes it tries to create its text log file but it says "the specified path cannot be found" and Notepad opens with a blank page.
If I try to associate a file extension with a particular application (say .txt with Notepad++) I can browse to and select the relevant exe but the option to "always use the selected program" is greyed out and it remains associated with the default MS-Notepad.
Help in MS-Word, Excel & PowerPoint all say "There is a problem with one or more installed help files. Please repair your Office installation".
I guess there are other things although as far as I can tell all my files and folders appear to be present.
Yesterday after TwinHeadedEagle said there's no Malware I created a new admin account (Pete2).
Rebooted and logged on to this and hey presto this account behaves normally. I can do all the things that I couldn't do with my original account (Pete).
The Favorites are still empty of course but they get saved to C:\Users\Pete2\Favorites.
Desktop theme is remembered between reboots. MS-Office help is back, I can associate file extensions etc.
So all indications are that AVG Nation has gone and there's no Malware but there's this loss of file or folder permissions or access on my original account. Can I/we confirm this and/or fix it?
I could just continue to use my new account, Pete2, and gradually copy settings from Pete to Pete2, but this could be tedious. Maybe there's just a simple setting somewhere that will re-enable "Pete".
For info:
Windows 7 Professional, 64bit, SP1, 16Gb RAM. Intel Core i5, 3.4GHz
Thanks
Pete
Initially using the guidance previously posted on MalwareTips to deal with this and then later with great help from MalwareTips Staff Member TwinHeadedEagle we managed to get rid of the toolbar. After running numerous tools - Malwarebytes, Farbar, aswMBR, HitmanPro, MSE, AdwCleaner - TwinHeadedEagle
declared that my PC was free of Malware.
Great but some odd Windows behaviour remains and TwinHeadedEagle said I should ask here for help.
Basically my log on account ("Pete", it's an admin account and there's only one account) seems to have lost permissions or access to various system folders. For example:
Desktop theme and wallpaper can be set but are not remembered between reboots.
Lots of desktop shortcuts have disappeared. I can find them in the expected folder (C:\Users\Pete\Desktop) but this clearly isn't read when Windows starts.
All Favorites have gone from IE (it's IE10). They are all in the expected folder (C:\Users\Pete\Favorites) but in IE there's nothing.
If I create a new favorite in IE it gets stored to C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\Favorites.
In IE all the sites I had blocked from storing cookies have gone (tools, internet options, privacy, sites, managed websites).
When MalwareBytes completes it tries to create its text log file but it says "the specified path cannot be found" and Notepad opens with a blank page.
If I try to associate a file extension with a particular application (say .txt with Notepad++) I can browse to and select the relevant exe but the option to "always use the selected program" is greyed out and it remains associated with the default MS-Notepad.
Help in MS-Word, Excel & PowerPoint all say "There is a problem with one or more installed help files. Please repair your Office installation".
I guess there are other things although as far as I can tell all my files and folders appear to be present.
Yesterday after TwinHeadedEagle said there's no Malware I created a new admin account (Pete2).
Rebooted and logged on to this and hey presto this account behaves normally. I can do all the things that I couldn't do with my original account (Pete).
The Favorites are still empty of course but they get saved to C:\Users\Pete2\Favorites.
Desktop theme is remembered between reboots. MS-Office help is back, I can associate file extensions etc.
So all indications are that AVG Nation has gone and there's no Malware but there's this loss of file or folder permissions or access on my original account. Can I/we confirm this and/or fix it?
I could just continue to use my new account, Pete2, and gradually copy settings from Pete to Pete2, but this could be tedious. Maybe there's just a simple setting somewhere that will re-enable "Pete".
For info:
Windows 7 Professional, 64bit, SP1, 16Gb RAM. Intel Core i5, 3.4GHz
Thanks
Pete