A friend of mine has a Dell Inspiron 530, about three years old, running 
Windows Vista with Internet Explorer, hooked up to the Internet via a 
DSL connection.  Recently one of his g'kids opened an email attachment 
which allowed four incidents of the same Trojan into the computer and 
disabled the MS Security Essentials automatic updates.  Internet access 
was denied, and the computer reboots itself at the odd moment with what 
appears to be that ol' "blue screen of death" -- but it drops out too 
quickly for me to read the error message.  The computer restarts itself 
but we get a dialog box urging us to buy PCFIX, which "detected" some 
2700 "problems" in the computer, including several more incidents of the 
same Trojan.

I noted the basic date/time had switched itself back to 2007, so the 
first thing I did was to install a new CMOS battery.  Rebooted normally 
and reset the date/time, but it would not hold, so I booted to Safe Mode 
with Command Prompt and was able to reset.  Scanned twice with MS 
Security Essentialsin Safe Mode but it would not permit me to remove the 
four "allowed" Trojans.  Rebooted normally and the antivirus software 
asked to update and scan.  :::sigh:::

So now, having tried several other basic options, here are my 
questions:  One, how do I get into the Control Panel  to Add/Remove 
programs?-- specifically in Vista!?  (I can get there in every other 
version of Windows I've used!)  Two, how do I get into the Registry 
Editor to pull this Trojan's fangs?  (I am reasonably comfortable in the 
Registry with other versions of Windows.)  Three, should I remove MSSE 
and install the free version of Malwarebytes or Avira or something in 
its place?  Any and all help greatly appreciated, as always.

Joyce in SE Ohio


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