Windows 7 is broken

[markcwm]

Hello,

my copy of Windows 7 home premium 64-bit has been behaving erratically lately. I don't use anti-virus as it slows my old laptop to a crawl so I just surf carefully and rely on system restore if anything goes wrong. I recently was a little careless and Googled some unknown sites and now strange things are happening even after system restore. When I booted yesterday the mouse pointer went mad totally out of control but stopped when hit Windows key. Now when I try to build my module which is big, it usually breaks with something about "please submit a full error report" if I try again it breaks somewhere else.

I'm going to try Avast anti-virus and maybe Malwarebytes anti-malware searches to see what happens. If nothing is found I will have to reinstall the OS. Any advice?

[dawlane]

And the moral of this story is... Never think that because you are careful that it will never happen to me.
Without a good internet security solution and regular updates to all network capable software installed. Without it you are just propagating a problem that will have a knock on effect to others connected to the internet. That's why half the planet got hacked with ransom-ware twice within the space of a few months this year. Having an internet security solution installed reduces the risk of a machine getting infected, but not entirely.

The only sure way that you will only get rid of this problem now is to use a system recovery disk, preferably one that allows you check for infections and to do a proper low level format of the entire hard drive that cleans and checks the drive for bad sectors. Doing only a OS restore is not guaranteed to get rid of an infection.

As MS are trying to force users to switch to Windows X; then you should consider upgrading to a new machine capable of running it. If not then either don't use the machine for the internet, or install an OS that is not such an easy target for hackers to exploit.

[Qube]

If you think you have a virus / malware then do run MalwareBytes and also run Trend Housecall http://housecall.trendmicro.com/uk/index.html

I've personally never come across any issues whereby running those two has left a Windows PC still infected ( so long as your drive is not encrypted by these pesky modern day ransomeware shite bags ).

so I just surf carefully and rely on system restore if anything goes wrong

I would not rely on that method - Your PC can become infected via exploits just for being on the internet without even browsing. Years ago I worked in a computer shop ( ah, the fond memories ) and witnessed first hand a brand new PC build with XP being infected immediately it was connected to the web.

I would forgo a little speed for security

[Rick Nasher]

Even with antivirus/firewall which I do use, you really never out of danger as +200 viruses are being released everyday.
The myth of being on a Mac/Linux machine will save you is also bs for somewhere out there is dimpled young dude with nothing to do, all alone in his room making up plans for world dominion just because he can.

[Jason_W]

Get Malwarebytes and CCleaner for Majorgeeks.    I finally got rid of Avira AV because it was slowing down my pc and malwarebytes pretty much prevents any infections, etc.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/ is a very safe download site.

I was lucky to have a lifetime version of Malwarebytes, and this program has saved me from just about everysite that sells ads or whatnot.

Try those, and post your findings.


Jason

[Rooster]

The myth of being on a Mac/Linux machine will save you is also bs for somewhere out there is dimpled young dude with nothing to do, all alone in his room making up plans for world dominion just because he can.

Did someone say my name?

[Henri]

Hi,

if the infection is serious, then for me, there would be only two options:

   1. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/combofix/

   2. Reinstall OS


-Henri

[RonTek]

I only use Security Essentials with Windows 7 and avoiding malicious sites and email, that's all there is to it.

[markcwm]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, nice to get a bit of help.

I tried Trend Housecall first, it installed a program and a scan found no infections. So I installed CCleaner and just ran the default search and delete stuff scan which it did but nothing was found by it. Then I installed Malwarebytes 3.1 (wishing I had tried this one first now) and it just found a PUP called firefox.startpage24 I think, which isn't a virus. So I decided to not install Avast as I know this would slow my laptop down to a crawl, and I was fairly happy with Malwarebytes which actually did not slow my laptop down, strange don't know why I uninstalled it.

Then I deleted tdm-gcc 5.1 and reinstalled it and rebuilt my modules and this time it worked, no mysterious stops and the project works*. So either my gcc install was broken or CCleaner removed something, I wasn't attentive enough to notice which one.

* See http://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,102.msg5136.html#msg5136

[dawlane]

The myth of being on a Mac/Linux machine will save you is also bs for somewhere out there is dimpled young dude with nothing to do, all alone in his room making up plans for world dominion just because he can.

That's true, and I do remember an advert by Apple that made this claim of no viruses. Any operating system that becomes popular will become a target for a hacker. I find it amusing that I know a number of people using smart phones with no security software installed.

A good percentage of attacks are usually by finding an exploit. The last one I remember well was one for Linux was in Firefox with the FlashPlayer plugin installed.

Then I deleted tdm-gcc 5.1 and reinstalled it and rebuilt my modules and this time it worked, no mysterious stops and the project works*. So either my gcc install was broken or CCleaner removed something, I wasn't attentive enough to notice which one.

I would run some diagnostic tools on the systems memory and hard drive in case they are starting to fail.

[markcwm]

Okay, what diagnostic tools would I use? Thanks.

[dawlane]

For memory mem86+ and your hard drive manufacturer should have a few useful tools.

[markcwm]

Okay, how do you run this memtest86 dawlane? It's a BIN file and it seems to be a USB bootable. So do you have to put it on a USB stick to run it?

[Henri]

I would download the prebuilt iso and then use Rufus https://rufus.akeo.ie to make a bootable usb-stick.

-Henri

[dawlane]

There should have a auto installer for a USB key/drive on the site for download. Note that this will format the USB key/drive. So you should back up any data on it.

There is also the original version of Memtest86.

As I'm a Linux user and the OS install disk usually always comes with this tool, so I've never need to use either the ISO or a boot USB stick.

A video on how to use Rufus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YXSpKd0_cE