Need urgent help with spyware, please, please, please!

[lovecattlearelowing]

Our computer locked up this morning.

After DH had spent many hours with Dell support (he's now on first name terms with Manoj and they discussed Civilisation 4 at length while waiting for the pc to reboot etc), it is working, but keeps putting up an info box saying 'copying files' - sometimes it runs so quickly you can't click on it to cancel, sometimes you can.

Then we get another pop-up saying 'someone is running spyware on your pc - download anti-spyware now!' which we assume is part of the problem.

We de-installed Norton, which had corrupted, and on the Dell bloke's advice, installed AVG - it found loads of viruses and trojans but has not solved the spyware problem. Dell support is now on holiday til Wednesday, so we thought we'd try and download the AVG free spyware.

However, although I get a message saying it has installed successfully, when I try and run it, I get the message 'Connection to service Failure - please reinstall AVG anti-spyware 7.5' - so I have, 3 times now, and it still won't work. it keeps trying to connect to a page in Explorer, but then comes up with that error page cannot be found.

Would any of you lovely techie types have any idea what the problem is here and how I can fix it?

Cheers!

have you tried windows defender. it is free anv brill at getting rid of spy ware. don't download the snti syware it is telling you to as you are right that is is the virus.

As you are a non-techie, I won't suggest Hi-Jack This - as you could do lots of damage.

Instead try running the following to see if they help sort the issues:

Ad-Aware - Download Free Version

Spybot S&D - Free Download (You can give a Donation)

Avoid running Internet Explorer - use Firefox, less prone to attacks. Once your system has been fully cleared up, then you could go back to Internet Explorer if you really must!

Virus & Spyware Scan remotely using Trend Micro Housecall - it can take a while, but may pick things up that other's don't.
Trend Micro Housecall 6.5

Agree with nannynick. Try running both Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D (IME each of them picks up stuff that the other doesn't) and then (when you have a good few hours to spare) Trend Micro Housecall -- running that twice (which definitely took a loooong time) managed to clear up one infection that had eluded regular antivirus software.

Thansk guys - I can't install Ad-Aware as it says I'm not the adminstrator and don't have sufficient authority (? Neither does DH, it appears??) but have installed SpybotSD - however, the problem persists.

I will try and do the Trend Micro thing now, as it isn't going to get any better!

Ran Trend Micro last night and it managed to find what had eluded the other programs - thank you very, very much for your help - normal service appears to have been resume!