Computer antivirus question...

[guest18]

Ok, I have managed to get onto my laptop some malware 

Personal antivirus it's called and basically it pretends to be an antivirus programme, produces continual (spurious) popups telling me the system is under attack (which it is, but not in the way it says!!) and tries to get me to go buy their anti-virus (not even if hell froze over! )

AVG free and Adaware don't seem to be able to deal with it, AVG comes up clean and adaware froze  so my question to the computer literate;
How do I safely remove the blasted thing?? (obv I could google some instructions but I don't want to fall foul of more malware so thought I would ask a more reliable(!) source! )

Cheers,
Smudge (slumming it on the main desktop  )

[Steve Lake]

Go here http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html?part=dl-10804572&subj=dl&tag=button

It's free, download and run it....should clear out all the crap....used on a clients machine with exactly the same virus.....takes about half an hour to run (depending on number of files on system)

Best to remove all other antivirus proggys first. You may get various messages during the scan relating to stuff found, take the 'put it in quarantine' option.

when the scan has finished you'll get a report on what's been found (don't be suprised if it's in the hundreds!) and you'll see the option to delete....do it....it produces a log at the end, so you can see what's been done.

Cheers
Steve
PS......It is best to create a restore point b4 you begin (start, all programs, accessories, tools, system restore......create a restore point)
Then in the unlikely event of malware removing an infected system file, you can recover back to the previous state....

[guest18]

Cheers Steve, (touch wood) that appears to have done the trick 
It refused to restart on re-boot but when I tried on "last settings which worked" (or some similar wording) it booted up ok and all seems well again 
I guess I'll be getting you a beer at Uttoxeter then!!