Unwelcome Company

For the past week or so WinFixer has made itself very comfy cozy on my computer. I have not been amused. Of course, my strategy was to ignore it and hoped that Norton AntiVirus would destroy it without me having to get involved.

Finally this morning I couldn't take it any more and began investigating what I would have to do to kick WinFixer out of my computer.

In case you're not aware of the interloper that goes by the alias WinFixer , it shows itself by popping up as a Internet Explorer Warning saying:

NOTICE: If your computers has errors in the registry database or file system, it could cause unpredictable or erratic behavior, freezes and crashes.  Fixing these errors can increase your computer's performance and prevent data loss. Would you like to install WinFixer 2005 to check your computer for free (Recommended)

When WinFixer invades it just pops up incessantly while you are trying to surf the net. It is a nuisance extraordinaire.

So at 5:00 AM I began the work of getting rid of WinFixer once and for all. I typed in Getting Rid of WinFixer and Google took me to a bunch of threads where techie types talked about.

I found a thread at Virtual Dr. Forums and began reading the instructions.  However once I got to this step I froze:

• Once in safe mode open the VundoFix folder and doubleclick on KillVundo.bat

• You will first be presented with a warning.
  It should look like this
  

• Quote:

VundoFix V2.1 by Atri By pressing enter you agree that you are using this at your own risk.

At this point press enter one time.

Next you will see:

Quote:

Type in the filepath as instructed by the forum staff Then Press Enter, Then F6, Then Enter Again to continue with the fix.

• At this point please type the following file path (make sure to enter it exactly as below!):
  
  
• C:\WINDOWS\system32\vturq.dll

Way too scary and complicated for my limited technical skills. It's now 6:00 A.M.

Next, I found Microsoft AntiSpyware (Beta) and decided to install. Okay, it took three times to get the software to install correctly --couldn't they have reminded me that I needed to turn off Norton when introducing a new spyware fighter to my computer?

At 7:10 A.M, after restarting and starting my computer more times that I wanted to, the spyware software says it has found virtumondo..aka WinFixer. We zap it. I'm feeling quite competent...until...

I restart my computer , try to check email.Microsoft Office won't work. I reboot. It still doesn't work. I do this three times. Finally it works .

Then I retype Winfixer in Google. The search is hijacked. Instead of Google popping up..an AOL Search page appears. It says there are not results for WinFixer.

I'm taking this as a bad sign. I know its a bad sign. I just don't know what it means. It's now 8:50 AM Central Standard Time. I don't have the energy or the desire to continue my spyhunting. My day job awaits.