Do I have a trojan or not?

[PURPLESWAN]

Yesterday the children were on the internet and got a message to say I had a trojan virus in my HP (I assume this meant hewlett packard) files.

I wasnt sure if this was a scam or not so I downloaded the microsoft malware detection and removal tool but after chugging away for a few hours this said I had no problem.

Im not sure though as sometimes when I shut down the computer stays on, its very very slow and when I open up the internet and go into favourites my cursor behaves strangely. Also, despite moving lots of stuff onto a separate drive, the computer still seems to have memory issues.

Help appreciated from clever people, im not useless but dont blind me with too much science!

I know there are lots of websites/applications which claim to help but I dont really want to install anything else on the computer unless I know its from a reputable source.

Memory or disk space issues? How do you know that you have issues?

Moving stuff onto another disk won't help you with your memory. Also, as a rule, dragging files from one disk to another in Windows leaves the files behind in their original place. So after moving them you should delete them.

I'd recommend that you download and run this to check for bad things:
www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php

In general there are a lot of things out there on the internet that will try and trick you into thinking that you have a virus and then offering to "fix" it for a fee. They're con tricks and just ignore them.

Keep your anti-virus up to date and run that ad aware thing on a weekly basis and you should be fine.

Do you have any anti virus software installed, before you downloaded the Mircosoft removal tool. If so do a scan with that. If not you could download AVG or Avast and MalwareBytes and run these. Best would be Kasperspy Internet Security that's around £35.

You could also open task manager (right click on the taskbar)then the processes tab, click show processes from all users and see if one is using a lot of CPU time then google the name and see if it is a known trojan.

I took off Norton as it was snarling up the machine completely, I now use AVG.

Ive had messages to say "not enough memory to complete" (sorry cant remember what) I mainly moved documents and photos to the external drive and they no longer show on my c drive at all.

My task manager shows a list of processes a mile long, I know the security from our bank is causing an issue but there are loads which say svchost.exe unfortunately I dont know which processes they all relate to.

Have you downloaded that Rappor thing that banks are offering? That can cause your computer to go really slow and it's completely unnecessary if you have AVG.

Download and run that AdAware thing that I linked to above. That will do a very good job of hunting down any bad things and it's free.

Your computer is complaining that it's running out of memory, which is not the same as disk space. You can have loads of disk space free and still hit that memory message.

So where's all the memory going?

Well that AdAware thing will find and trim out anything that's "bad".

And that leaves the good, which we can then trim away.

Funky - thats the one, I think I may take it off its a pain in the neck.

I had vuze on which I uninstalled.

Is the adware thing quite safe, im really wary about downloading random things from the internet.

Yes AdAware is quite save, well as safe as some strangers advice on the internet is :) I've recommended it numerous times. You can also Google it to see people's opinions.

Well thats the thing isnt it LOL, you could have created it and its gonna wipe out my computer...of course why would you, but then why would anyone!!

I have had a look at it, but wouldnt avg do the same...surely between avg & the microsoft scan it SHOULD have been picked up, maybe im being paranoid and theres nothing wrong with the computer!!

Different software packages spot different things. AVG is, I think, only anti-virus and we're not looking for viruses but programs that are doing things you don't want them to be.

And as for Microsoft, well if they knew what they were doing your PC wouldn't be in the mess that it is.

Seriously, give AdAware a go, it's very good and thorough.

Will it fall out with any of the existing software?

It shouldn't. Just run it the once and make sure that it's not set to auto-run on it's own. Even that shouldn't cause any harm, it's just that I prefer occasional manual scanning for dodgy software.