It must be a virus. Need help.

Astralv

Honorable
May 6, 2013
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10,580
Hey, guys

I have a Dell Latitude lap top that cost me $1800 in 2008- it had those first SSDs and Core 2 Duo processor at 2.8 Mhz clock, runs Vista. I needed it for live performances (electronic music) and I needed it to be top model so it does not fail on the stage.

Long story short- I did not get to use it so much as band became unstable. So today, 6 years later I have almost brand new very expensive lap top that suddenly got problems. I would only use it once in few months, so I would get it out of the case, turn on, charge batteries, and then put it back in closet. Till recently it was working very well. Very fast boot, speed of light operation, no issues. Then my friend borrowed it for presentation... He kept it for few months, also using it occasionally for light music- related research. (No porn- lol). He did not tell me that Antiviruses went out of date.

When he told me, I told him to stop using it and return it ASAP, that took few weeks, and now that it is back- it is not the same. I think it has virus.

I have Norton 360 and Webroot installed on it. Both of these suits do NOT detect anything.

Symptoms: it is slower.

When I wanted to run Windows update, it says, "Can not update now because service is not running. You may need to restart computer". I restarted it over and over and over, but it would do the same thing. I remember setting it to "Never download and install updates". But this is not what it shows to be set in updates settings.

After I reset it to "Notify about updates but let me select which once to install", nothing happened- it would still not attempt to "check for updates.

Then I attempted to turn on Windows Defender. It did not turn on at first but after few tries it turned on.

After another restart the Windows updater decided to run. It was installing something for a while, then I accidently restarted it. When I looked at the update history, it appeared that all Office updates were installed, while all security updates were canceled.

I set it up to update again. It took at least 3 tries to start download. It estimated 144 important updates. It sounds radiculous. I am not a type of user that never updates my computers. I have several custom PCs that I update the second update is released.

So I left it downloading over night. This morning it says, "Installing update 123 out of 144. And it hangs on 123 for hours.

So I looked in the update history. Again- it installed all Office updates, and all Security updates it says, "Pending". I have never seen "Pending". Almost all security updates are listed as Pending. Something prevents them from installing.

I have about 50 Gb of space on C drive

I ran Norton Antivirus, Webroot Antivirus- Nothing.
I installed Malware Bytes Antimalware Pro. It ran 2 scans and found nothing.

It still hanging on update 123 of 144 and many security updates "Pending". What do I do now? Thank you.

 

saywhut

Estimable
Sep 11, 2014
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4,610
First start off with running the on-board diagnostics to ensure there is no error code on the drive. As soon as you turn on the machine, keep tapping F12 key until the one time boot menu comes up, then select the diagnostic option.

To do a pretty good malware check, boot the machine into Safe Mode with Networking (F8 when turning on the machine), download, install and run these utilities in order:
RKill --> TDSS Killer --> CCleaner --> Malwarebytes (look like you already did) --> ComboFix (only if you still have issues after Malwarebytes says it finds things and deleted it).

You can find these programs by googling them.

If your Norton Anti Virus and Webroot is expired, go ahead and just uninstall them.

As for the update, just cancel it, or turn off your machine.
 

Astralv

Honorable
May 6, 2013
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Thank you for your reply. I restarted lap top and most of security updates listed as successful now. One update that shows as Cenceled was for 64 bit systems, my system is 32 bit.

But I can not say- everything is ok now. It showed 5 more updates to be downloaded and installed, and "Install Updates" button is hardly works. I had to press it like 5 times before it actually started doing it. And now it hanging at 0%. Then it showed Bing toolbar just installed (and I uninstalled it the other day), and now it disapeared from the list again.

Any way. I will let it "hang" at 0% for a while (it is wireless connection, so who knows- I do not use my wireless that much), and then I will try what you suggested.

Norton and Webroot are active paid subscriptions. They lapsed when lap top was not in my care and now it is on. I have this combination on all my computers and almost never have any viral outbreaks. Will try safe mode. Thank you again.
 

CPU Fan

Honorable
Jan 7, 2014
7
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10,510
Try running Avast, then Malware Bytes, then HitMan Pro. Make sure they check rootkits and registry items.

There are a few microsoft updates that tend to take a very long time. If you wait over night and it sitll hasn't installed and nothing so far is helping, See if your hard drive came with a recovery partition and recover windows from it. Seems like your best bet. Once that's done, install AVG or Avast and ditch that Norton crap.

you could also start task manager and see what processes are running and stop any unknown ones to see what effect it has. Go take a look through your Program Files folder and look for any unusual folder names (programs that you didn't specifically install). Research them and delete if it's unwanted.

Most times reinstalling windows will fix every problem i've encountered. Recently a friend asked me to try and fix her laptop. It would take a solid 30 minutes to boot up (if it would boot at all). I pulled the hard drive, stuck it on my hot swap slot and pulled her documents from it, in case I needed to wipe it. Managed to get the PC to boot up and used the recovery partition to fix it. Ran great afterwards.

EDIT: I just saw your post that you renewed the Norton. In that case, keep it, but I don't feel any more confident in paid AV software than I do in free.
 

saywhut

Estimable
Sep 11, 2014
41
0
4,610
Also, open up an elevated command prompt, and type in "sfc /scannow" to see if it find any corrupt files and if it fixes them or not. With all those issues that you described, if everything else pans out fine, I would recommend just re-installing Windows and starting over.
 

Astralv

Honorable
May 6, 2013
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10,580
Thank you for the great ideas. The take home lesson is do not ever give your computers to anyone, even if they are technically knowledgeable. My partner is a Mac fan, he always jokes Windows for it updates drama. He says, "If you count all the time spent on Microsoft updates in this country..." He thinks- if you dont go on "unsafe" sites, you can not get virus. Ugh.

This computer has partition. Also I have Windows 7 update option. I bought it about month before Windows 7 was released and it came with upgrade option- Vista to Win 7, so I got a disk from Microsoft. My concern is that I will not find the drivers disk, or that it will not work on Windows 7.

Ok, so here is what happening: it did go through and installed those 5 updates, and then it wanted to install another 16 updates. Which is fine. But it has been hanging on update 1, and then said, "Could not install program. You already have different build flavor of Windows Live". That same thing happened last time, so why does it try to do it again? How do I make it not to attempt to install same program? It gives small message that hides behind Updates Windows and it looks like it stole, and it may just waits for my reply.

Yeah, it just acts weird. It is not healthy computer. All clicks take 2 tries and it is slow.

I will try those suggestions. Also I have a project due soon (on another computer)- I can not have too much time spent on troubleshooting the lap top. Should I attempt to install Windows 7 on it? What if drivers will not work? Theoretically it was sold to work with Win 7, but we never know. I could go for Win 8, but that may not even run on it- what ya think? Thank you.
 

saywhut

Estimable
Sep 11, 2014
41
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4,610
Go with Windows 7 by all means, Vista is like the unwanted child. Backup any data you need and want to an external drive or cloud, and jump to Windows 7. Drivers can easily be found online.