[SGVLUG] Need help with clearing popups from windows system

[Michael Proctor-Smith]

On 9/5/06, Matthew Gallizzi <matthew.gallizzi at gmail.com> wrote:
> To be honest, I'd just reformat and reinstall. In the past I find myself
> trying to learn what the heck is going on ... but, fact? Well, fact is -
> this is bloated Windows. Copy over everything to a USB drive and copy back
> and reinstall. Problem solved. Not only will Windows run faster, but a bunch
> of junk will be removed too.
>
> Anywho, that's my two cents.

My two cents are why in the hell are we talking about this on a Lug
mailing list.

> On 9/5/06, Ken Lin <indigo451 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Sorry, what was the website the adware is referring to maybe the specific
> cleaning tool is listed in secunia or symantec
> >
> >
> http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/security_response/removaltools.jsp
> >
> > also spybot search and destroy is pretty good at blocking bad websites.
> they call it innoculating IE by filling in the blocked website list for you
> >
> > http://www.safer-networking.org/
> >
> >
> > "Emerson, Tom" < Tom.Emerson at wbconsultant.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message----- Of Claude Felizardo
> >
> > > On 9/5/06, Alex Roston wrote:
> > > > [...] I haven't fooled with it
> > > > lately, but at one point it was possible to do a "hot" reinstall of
> > > > Windows, and this didn't work very well for replacing files
> > > which had
> > > > been deliberately buggered.
> > >
> > > Hang on, are you saying it is possible to reinstall windoze
> > > on top of an existing system and not have to reinstall all of
> > > your apps? I mean I thought one of the problems with windoze
> > > is that it's still difficult to determine if your data files
> > > are stored in a subdirectory of the App or in one of the "My
> > > blah" folder. Can you repair in place?
> >
> > Well, I can see two (or more) problems with this approach: as I
> > understand it, every application "registers" itself in the registry
> > during installation, if you re-install, wouldn't it re-write the
> > registry from scratch? (meaning you'll have the executables "in place"
> > for your userland apps, but windows wouldn't be "aware" of them) If it
> > doesn't rewrite the registry, anything "hidden" in the registry that
> > triggers an infection will still be there (i.e., anything defined to
> > "run at boot time")
> >
> > Secondly, if a non-microsoft application has been contaminated, and that
> > in turn contaminates system files (so as to hide itself from scans), you
> > haven't actually eliminated the problem (the trojan is still out
> > there...) I suppose, though, the system would be "innoculated" in a
> > sense in that some viruses will check before infecting, so the system
> > *may* appear infected and the virus doesn't re-infect the system. Of
> > course, the virus writer might take the easy route and ALWAYS infects
> > every time it runs, but that's another matter entirely...
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Matthew Gallizzi