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This has happened to my friend twice...the first time it happened...he took it to datadoctors and got it fixed.

second time it happened...the home page that it got changed to...says he needed to buy their product to get rid of it..so he send a message to their customer support and wrote a message to them(i wont saying..had tons of curse words)

and they replyed giving him a free trial to their program..he used it and got it fixed

Matt, get yourself an external harddrive, back only the most necessary files up, check that drive for virusses through AVG or something from a Linux LiveCD and then format your PC.

Agreed. I have a 500GB external drive that I plug in and run a full backup once a week. The beauty of my backup software (Backup4All, costs ~$40) is that it only copies over changed files. I literally backup my entire hard drive onto it, aside from C:\Windows and I also backup my personal source code onto a USB key after *every* time I finish a change. It takes only about a half hour to an hour once a week to update the backup, and you have peace of mind. Just a thought.

So you're suggesting I do absolutely nothing, pretend it never happened, and let him get away with murder? If anyone has a better solution to make him not want to do this anymore, I'm certainly all ears. But not pursuing this guy in any way and just rolling over so he can annoy others (and for some "normal" users, cause serious damage) doesn't sound like a feasible option. I agree that a lawsuit probably isn't the best choice, even if it's feasible, but if there aren't any options, I'll simply make options .

Edit: And going without my computer since sunday? Having my new job threatened and not being able to start on the day I was supposed to start? Delays in game dev stuff? Again, I hate frivolous lawsuits, but I'm not some chick who spilled McDonald's coffee in her lap. Suing for the exact financial amount isn't worth anyone's time. Suing for enough to make him lose his home? That'd keep him from doing anything this stupid ever again, and rest-assured it'd inspire others to avoid doing silly crap like this in the future. But again, if you have a better solution, I'm definitely all for trying it.

Well, there appears to be good news... I'm not sure how good though. This morning I went into safemode and played with my services settings. I turned off a bunch of stuff that I never use, like WIA and whatnot, and tried running stuff again. Whatever it is I turned off, it fixed something, because now I can install software again. I re-installed Spysubtract and returned to safe mode, ran that, and found a ton of stuff that SUPERantispyware, Trend Micro, Spybot, AVG, Nod32, and Ad-Aware weren't able to locate... including a dozen files with "hijacker" in the name, and a couple of trojans. I killed the PC, fired her up again in selective startup, and now I have full internet access, no adverts through google or anything, and everything seems to be running fine. Last night my computer was shutting down whenever I tried to run an anti-virus... instant reboot whenever it got about 50% finished. Now I can run these programs instantly and without conflict.

But now there's a new issue. HJT doesn't work! Every time I try to run it, I get "Error!" I tried installing the new Trend Micro version, and it presents me with "Runtime Error '50003': Unexpected Error." I've tried reinstalling it, but no dice . Anyone else ever have this problem? I want to run HJT just to be on the extra safe side... I'm not convinced this virus is truly dead, and I don't want it coming back to life to kill me when I least expect it, like some cheesy monster in an 80's slasher flick .

Well, since 'everything' works now, back up your vital crap ASAP before anything else happens... I'd still suggest a format though

Matt: You won't be able to do anything. The guy probably lives of the revenues from his website, so he won't stop with it. You can't inspire anyone with that kind of stuff. It'll just cost you time and money better spent in avoiding bad sites.

Then I'll find a way to seek revenge without paying money, lol. I'm dead serious, I absolutely refuse to let this guy get away with this. And if he didn't do it, I'll just have to find a way to locate the person who did, lol. This is one of those instances where I'm totally deadset in my ways already, lol.

A little bit of an exaggeration?



It's all black and white to you, I realize, but there is gray. I'm suggesting that you think before you talk. Suing, releasing hellfire, getting him arrested, etc. sounds very lovely in a fluffy world, but it's not realistic. Think about some clever ways. I don't have the answer as to what you should do, and I don't pretend to. But there's a difference between not agreeing with what you're talking about and all-out saying do nothing



Actions speak louder than words. Do something about it then let us know the results. This is not what you want to hear, maybe, but it's reality.

Well, that's why I made the thread though lol, I'm not exactly sure just how to do it . I'm not saying definitely that getting him sent to prison or suing is the answer, but if they're possible solutions they're worth doing I think. I didn't mean the murder thing literally, it's a figure of speech (in the US anyway). Like, "that kid is cheating on his homework and getting away with murder."

The Hijackthis thing is really irritating me, and I can't find a meaningful solution online . I'm wondering if the virus did something to prevent HJT from running... a part of me thinks that doesn't seem likely, but another part of me thinks it sort of makes sense for someone to want to do that. Ugh.

I haven't been in the computer hardware business for about 10 years (since highschool!), but back in the day if a user was hit with a virus, it was almost always better to fdisk, format, and reinstall. It's almost always fruitless trying to contain a virus if it's wreaking havoc. Spyware is in my opinion just as bad as a virus.

Once your system has been compromised, you can never safely say you've gotten rid of the virus. Even if you scan your system and you don't notice annoying popups anymore, etc., how can you be 100% sure that it's not just laying dormant somewhere and transmitting data to a server somewhere? That's freaky, especially when you have trade secrets (source code, game design docs, etc.) on your hard drive.

I don't envy you. Last year, literally the day of reinstalling Windows, I downloaded a no-CD crack for my father for some language software. Before you ask, he owns the CD, but he is on a laptop with only an external CD drive and finds it a pain to have to insert his CD when he uses the software. Anyways, it just assaulted my machine with ads and popups, installing toolbars everywhere including IE, my start menu, and even somehow put ads in my Windows explorer! Luckily it was as I said directly after I did a reinstall so I didn't lose any data, but I knew in my heart it would be fruitless to try to squash the spyware manually. I just shut down my PC and reinstalled Windows again.

(sorry for the long post)