Alan wrote:
>I understand that there is a way to use my second computer to enter my 
>main computer and do a virus scan using the AVAST in my second unit. >>

Neither Avast nor Spybot are now the leaders in their fields and may or may 
not be capable of removing all infections.

1. Download Malwarebytes and Avira (both free versions) to your good 
computer (Google for them) and install and update them. If either of these 
either won't install, run, or update, that's a sure sign that your "good" 
computer is also infected. There are many virus/trojans that protect 
themselves by preventing the installation, running or updating of any new 
security software.

2. One trick you can use to overcome that possible problem is to install 
Malwarebytes under a different name--I usually install it under the name 
Melwarebytes but it doesn't matter what you call it. This might help 
prevent any malware from recognising it as security software, though no 
doubt there will be new malware which will soon be aware of this trick. 
Some people also recommend installing security software in Safe Mode (if 
that is possible) though I haven't gone to that extreme. I suspect that you 
might have to manually open the "Windows Installer" service to do this in 
Safe Mode, as this mode only opens the basic Services.

3. There are now classes of viruses that can invisibly jump from any device 
such as a hard drive or thumb drive to any other device. Therefore you 
should go to the Sophos security site and download their free "Link" patch 
for XP/W7 and run it on your good computer. Do this before proceeding to 
step 4. Although this security flaw has been exploited (yes, I first saw it 
about 3 months ago while using a Flash memory stick!) for several months, I 
believe Microsoft have only just now come up with a security update for it. 
Omit this step if you have already installed that security update.

4. Remove the hard drive from your bad computer and hook it up to your good 
computer. You don't need to screw it in, just leave it hanging as long as 
it's reasonably supported. Sata drives are easy. If it's an older IDE 
drive, you will have to set its jumper to "Slave". Instructions will be 
printed on the top of the hard drive. Don't forget to re-set it to "Master" 
when you put it back in its home computer or it won't boot.

5. Restart your good computer in Safe Mode. This should prevent malware 
from starting and thus protect itself.

6. Run full system scans in Safe Mode with both these programs and remove 
the nasties. Run full scans again until each comes up completely clean. 
sometimes it can take 2 or 3 passes to completely remove some bad ones.

Don Penlington

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