I don't know exactly what it was... be it a virus, spyware, or malware. I'm not even sure if I understand the difference between the three anyway.
At one point NAV detected and eliminated a virus with "pdf" in the name - not as an extension, but in the name. Based on that info I did a search for all .pdf files on my computer, and found 3 that I had no knowledge of downloading, that were recently modified / added to my computer. I incinerated them, and ran NAV, Ad-Aware, Malwarebytes, and Spybot again after freshly updating them.
Everything but NAV found something wrong; some involving registry HKeys (which I don't pretend to understand) or some kind of adware / spyware - Ad-Aware actually labeled what it found "Malware" and it had a long and complicated name containing the word "restore" and ending in .sys, located deep within my windows directory.
I removed that through Ad-Aware, and restarted my computer - checked the sytem32 folder and the fake .sys file was NOT there.
Ran both IE and FF and both are functioning normally!
I'm still going to change all my passwords again, just in case... and I'll probably refrain from doing any monetary transactions online until I get my new computer.
I also picked up a new DVD +/- RW drive, and some DVD+RW discs at Microcenter last night; to begin the process of saving files I want to keep after my new computer arrives. I think I'm still going to keep this computer, but I want to upgrade the video card to something with an S-Video connection to let me hook it up to my HD TV; use it exclusively as a media player.
I'd like to thank Al, CJ, Critch, Erica, Lisa, Melody, Mike for all your help and support :)
At one point NAV detected and eliminated a virus with "pdf" in the name - not as an extension, but in the name. Based on that info I did a search for all .pdf files on my computer, and found 3 that I had no knowledge of downloading, that were recently modified / added to my computer. I incinerated them, and ran NAV, Ad-Aware, Malwarebytes, and Spybot again after freshly updating them.
Everything but NAV found something wrong; some involving registry HKeys (which I don't pretend to understand) or some kind of adware / spyware - Ad-Aware actually labeled what it found "Malware" and it had a long and complicated name containing the word "restore" and ending in .sys, located deep within my windows directory.
I removed that through Ad-Aware, and restarted my computer - checked the sytem32 folder and the fake .sys file was NOT there.
Ran both IE and FF and both are functioning normally!
I'm still going to change all my passwords again, just in case... and I'll probably refrain from doing any monetary transactions online until I get my new computer.
I also picked up a new DVD +/- RW drive, and some DVD+RW discs at Microcenter last night; to begin the process of saving files I want to keep after my new computer arrives. I think I'm still going to keep this computer, but I want to upgrade the video card to something with an S-Video connection to let me hook it up to my HD TV; use it exclusively as a media player.
I'd like to thank Al, CJ, Critch, Erica, Lisa, Melody, Mike for all your help and support :)
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