A not so known feature of Vista or W7

[C1972]

I made this video for those who might enjoy doing things like this. It breaks the monotony of the same old wallpaper. Hopefully some of you will give it a try. If you do, let me know if you like it. If not, no biggie. Watch it in 720p if you can.

[PamIsMe]

Well I tried it on Windows 7 but it didn't work. However about 6 months ago I somehow got a trojan that hide everything on my desktop and all my files, made my computer look like the hard drive had been wiped clean. I got 99% of it fixed. The one thing I can't figure out is changing my desktop pictures using the control panel. I can do it manually using regedit tho. Anyway, I think that's why it didn't work on my computer.

Cheers,
Pam

[C1972]

What version of W7 are you running? Go to Start>Computer>Right Click>Properties to find out.
I usually stay away from regedit, simply because it shouldn't be necessary to use it unless the situation is dire. I've never had a good outcome using it. Is your PC up to date? Have you ran a scan using Malwarebyes? If not, go here www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/ and install it if you want. Make sure to update the app and run a 'Quick Scan'. Let's see if we can eliminate that 1% that's still wrong ;-)

[PamIsMe]

Windows Home Premium Service pak 1. PC is up to date as was anti virus protection. At the time I was using paid version of McAfee which didn't catch the trojan. Now I actually have paid version of Malwarebytes which did find 2 trojan entries on a deep scan when I first ran it and deleted them. Have also tried a number of other programs available online that should find it, but my problem still wasn't solved. I have done all the sytem maint stuff and b rowsers are s eto to delete history and cookies when I close them out.

I found the regedit advice online in a users forum somewhere. I am fairly computer savvy and don't like to fool with regdit either, but it worked.

So, now that I tried the program you recommended, my desktop picture has disappeared again and it won't show even when I followed the same directions for the regedit entry as I did before. My desktop icons are just on the blue background that comes with windows. Can't change the color either.

My friend was using my laptop to search for airfares and she told me something was wrong with my computer. There was a popup window on a blue screen saying that a major infection needed to be cleaned. I didn't click on anything just restarted the computer. She swore she hadn't clicked on anything either. Took me 3 weeks to get half of the files I thought were deleted back. They weren't actually deleted, just all the files on my C drive were marked as hidden. Right clicking and unhiding them one by one solved most of it. Eventually I even did a system restore for the first time in the 15 years I've had computers, to no avail.

Any further suggestions?

Cheers,
Pam

[C1972]

OK, sounds like you MAY have a Vundo variant (I've had it and it SUCKED!) or something a bit more sinister than you may realize.
This link is to a site I've used a few times when I couldn't get rid of a particularly nasty infections.
www.geekstogo.com/
If you so choose, go there and make an account. Take a few hours and read. Just read. Go into the archives, learn about the way they run their site. It's all volunteer and these guys and gals are TOP NOTCH at ascertaining what particular infection you may have or corruption due to viruses, etc.. They'll have you do a scan and post the logs so they can go through them.
When you feel comfortable, go to the proper forum and start a new thread explaining in as much detail as possible, your main issue.
Then, be patient, sometimes it takes a couple days before someone will get back to you. When they do get back to you, that person will be committed to assisting you in every possible way and fixing your PC.
I can't speak highly enough about this site. They're amazing and the best part is that it's totally FREE!
Oh yeah, if you use IE at all, be sure and read the homepage there when you click on the link. Read:How to Install the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET)
I use www.eset.com/us/ for my AV app, it's worth every penny. Norton is horrible, if you don't want to pay, try www.avast.com/en-us/index for free.
Good luck and keep us posted.

[PamIsMe]

Yeah, I had bad experiences with Norton years ago, seemed to screw up more stuff than it protected, hated it. McAfee worked great for years, until this trojan slipped through. I wrote down the name of the trojan I got but unfortunately can't find it now. Maybe I'll think of it yet so I may be able to get more specific help. I did a lot of research online on it when I first got it which is how I discovered my files were just hidden and how to unhide them. It helps to have a PC and a laptop if one or the other has a problem. lol

I have Firefox and Google Chrome browsers as well, but a game I like to play seems to works best on IE. I do switch back and forth at times when IE seems slow though. I've never used MS Outlook for email, didn't trust it much.

I will check out geekstogo in depth. I just did install the EMET, now all I have to do is figure out what it does. LOL

Now that I'm thinking about this problem again, I'd like to get it solved.

Thanks for the advice,
Pam

[C1972]

Glad to help.

[Woodswalker]

Try TDS killer . .

I had that same thing last fall and absolutely nothing else could clear it up.

It will find the virus in 40 seconds then tell you to reboot. The virus is disguised as a device driver.

[C1972]

I had to share this one Pam.

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