JohnRoss Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 My old machine seems to have been infected with a virus or trojan called Win32 Malware-gen. Avast has just found this after an update. It cannot be removed to the virus chest or deleted. Looking at the web I note that several people have reported the same problem on French computer sites. Has anyone else had this and how did you get rid of it? One suggested was that it might be a false positive identified by Avast but the machine has been playing up of late and attempts to reload Windows Millenium OS and start again have failed for some reason..................................JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suein56 Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 Before someone who knows about this comes along, can I ask if you have done a spyware scan recently? Something like SpyBot might help. Also Avast looks like it will be stopping updates to ME from the end of 2009, so perhaps time to think of changing your OS?From the Avast site : <<Note: The operating systems Windows 95/98/Me/NT4 will be supported until the end of 2009.>> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 You can try using www.google.com (instead of .fr) and type in 'removing Win32 Malware-gen'. Theres quite a bit of stuff from different sources but its a pain to remove. Do read some of the forums that it finds because amongst the posts there are links to tools that will remove it. From what I briefly read SpyBot may detect this infection but can't fix it.If you do decide to reload make sure you remove and recreate the partition then reformat the HDD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnRoss Posted November 29, 2009 Author Share Posted November 29, 2009 If you have done a spyware scan recently? Something like SpyBot might help. Yes thanks Sue I used to run AVG and Spybot on this machine but following a crash some months ago I had to reload the OS and did not reinstall Spybot and AVG said it was not going to update virus definitions soon for Millennium based systems. It only gets used now for off-line work though I do go on-line once in a long while if the Missus is using the other machine. I tried downloading Spybot again but it would not load and from what Quillan says it would have not done much good anyway. It was Avast that found several infections of this bug on the HD but only after the last virus definitions update but I don't know how long it has been lurking there and if it is responsible for the erratic functioning of this machine or not. So yes I will have a look at some English language sites and see if I can find a tool to remove it. I must assume that nobody reading this post has yet had the pleasure of the company of Win 32 Malware-Gen yet!....................................................JRPS Thanks to both for the replies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnOther Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 I don't know if this goes for everyone but for me calling up Google.com seems to invoke a geograhical filter which automatically redirects me to Google.fr. I can of course tell that to give me results in English but it's just as easy to use Google.co.uk in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnRoss Posted November 29, 2009 Author Share Posted November 29, 2009 Ok so if I reformat the HD would loading a free OS do the trick and which would you suggest folks?...............JRPS and yes this happens for me too AnOther Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnOther Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 If for no other reason than ANYTHING will be better than ME, why not give UBUNTU Linux a whirl, nowt to lose at this point if you're willing to format and start from scratch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thunderhorse Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 [quote user="JohnRoss"]Ok so if I reformat the HD would loading a free OS do the trick and which would you suggest folks?...............JRPS and yes this happens for me too AnOther[/quote]I've been happy with SimplyMEPIS for about four years now. It does what it says, and the support forums are excellent.Whichever flavour of Linux you get eventually, try a few from a LiveCD, and read what you can. But you won't go back to Windoze. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnRoss Posted November 30, 2009 Author Share Posted November 30, 2009 Ok just to prove a point I have started from scratch and reloaded Millennium for the time being. This reformatted the HD and deleted everthing on it. I then reloaded the AOL box software and AOL 9. The computer bounced around now like a three year old and all was well. I then downloaded Avast and ran it and no bugs found. However the computer has slowed right down to the speed of a Deluvian Meggadonkey wading through a slime bog so this must be down to Avast holding everthing up to the light before allowing anything to happen I guess. I understand that Avast may not soon be updated for Millenium and I suppose I could replace the OS as has been suggested, poo!...................................................JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederick Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 I dumped Avast after years of use and loaded COMODO ... I am very satisfied with them dont have to wait so long as did with Avast when starting up .. check it out its free like Avast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 You could try AVIRA personal edition by anti vir which I have been using successfully for quite a while after changing from Avast. This is also free and is OK to run on Windows 2000....according to the documentation.Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.