Can anyone help me with my Internet Explorer problem please?

[MumHadEnough]

I have tried what I can do within my limited knowledge and it's driving me nuts!

Everytime I "submit" information on a web page, I am getting the "this page cannot be displayed" message. I.e. When i press "post message" on mumsnet it comes up, but if I press the back button the message is there.

Its also happening when I try to log into my webmail or when i tried to sign into the national lottery site tonight. If its a web page which retains my login its fine and I'm having no problem opening links, new threads etc.

So far, I have deleted all my internet cookies etc. I then did a full reset on internet explorer, back to "factory settings" or whatever its called. Its still not working.

I have been running a virus scan which is nearly finished and it seems to be fine. I ran one last night too which showed no infections.

I am at a loss as to what the problem could be! I hope someone can help.

Thanks in advance

I should have said I am using IE7. Thanks

I lie, I do have a virus. I said last nights showed no infections, it did, but said it had removed it, yet the same one is showing up again.

Its a Trojan Horse Agent.AHRN.

I am currently using AVG, it says it is removing the virus but then its appearing again. Anyone have any ideas?

I'd suggest you run a search for the file and delete it directly yourself. Be careful though, it's likely to be named very similarly to a legitimate file so make sure you delete the correct one!

Do you get automatic updates? It could be that you need a patch for IE7.

I don't know anything specific about that one.

Are you able to update AVG to the latest version? AVG 8 Free

Also you might want to install Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and run that. It's free for the version without the frills.

Also on the start menu there should be a shorcut to open Internet Explorer without add-ons. It's possible that something has attached itself to IE and that is putting the trojan back after you have cleaned it.

firefox is way better than IE imo

Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Have upgraded all windows patches. Have run Malwarebytes Anti Malware, which found 331 infected file!!!!! . AVG is totally up to date.

Rebooted computer and its still bloody doing it!

Have just been doing some research and it seems I might need to reinstall my operating system to get rid of this! Its scary and I have no idea where i got it from.

I can't just delete the file, as apparently its a critical windows file and the OS won't run without it. . I really really don't know what else to do.

I can't find a simple description of how to remove Agent.AHRN. There may be more things to try though. It's been suggested that if you boot up in safe mode and do a scan it may help.

To do that tap the F8 key continously while booting and then pick safe mode with NO network support.

If it came to it do you have a recovery disk? That would restore the computer to as it was when you got it. You'd have to copy your personal files off first.

Some have a recovery partition instead which is hidden on the hard drive. You get to it by pressing a key on startup (possibly the same F8 if they have added the Recovery option to that menu)

Again you'd want to copy off personal files first, but it would be good to know you had the option.

Thanks Onager, yes it seems to be quite a complicated one to get rid of.

I do have the recover disk, so I think if I can't remove it by tomorrow I'll back up my files and run the recovery disk.

Totally panicking about all my passwords now, but obviously don't want to use this infected machine to change them just now, as that would be pointless.

Going to try the scan in safe mode thing.

Thanks again!

Well, the virus has gone, or according to the Malawarebytes software it has. But I'm still having the original problem.

Have now added firefox and the problem is not there, so I assume it is some kind of Ie7 problem. Thanks for the suggestion Squonk, I'm really impressed with it so far.

Well that's great news! how did you do it after all?

I forgot all about the original problem.

You might try using the start menu shorcut to 'open Internet Explorer without add-ons' to see if that helps.

You might want to update Java as that is involved in this too. If you open Java in the control panel it has an update tab.
It wouldn't hurt to update shockwave and Flash as some of the adverts might be using that.

Hi Onager,

Malawarebytes removed the virus. I had did the ie without add ons thing and then also tried to add the "diagnose connection problems" add on, but couldn't do it. Also tried turning phishing filter on and off and a few other things that just didn't work. Its just totally bizarre how it was only when signing in to things it would happen, all other web pages were fine. I even missed by bloody lottery tickets this week because of it! grrrrrr. I'm just going to scap it now anyway as I'm so impressed with Firefox.

God knows why I didn't have it all these years!

Thanks for your input. If I ever find out the solution I'll post it in case its of interest to someone else.

Do you have a router? We had a similar problem last week and had to reconfigure our router

Hi maidamess, yes we have a wireless router. But if it was that then surely the problem would be apparent on firefox too and not just when using IE?