Vista Home and virus removal

I am trying to clean out a friends machine running Vista.

When I try to run Malware Bytes or Hijack This, I get an error message.

"Windows cannot access the specified device path or file, You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item"

I have "googled" this and it throws up millions of solutions?

Logged in as Administrator and UAC turned off.

Windows Defender found a few things as did Combofix.

But how to restore the above.....??

P.S. have just installed AVAST A/V it did a boot scan and found 3 items but it will not run correctly when Vista loads.

Edited by Brunel (Fri 06-Nov-09 15:54:32)

did you "run as administrator" (right mouse) even though logged in as one ?

If you know the file you want to zap use a linux live CD or Windows PE CD and manually zap the files from there.

Yes.


I believe all the malicious files have now been removed.

BUT. I still can't run Malware/B or Avast or MSN Messenger, all still give the error message as in my OP

Problem solved, removed M/Bytes, Hi Jack This and Avast and re-installed.

I suspect that the malware has written something in the registry.

In reply to a post by Brunel:

Problem solved, removed M/Bytes, Hi Jack This and Avast and re-installed.

I suspect that the malware has written something in the registry.

Hi, keep SmithfraudFix in your anti malware armament, it might have removed the malware as it is used in Windows Safe Mode.

http://siri.geekstogo.com/SmitfraudFix.php

Edit: I just see you are using Vista, Oh well, SmithFraudFix is a good tool for use with Windows XP.

Edited by deleted (Mon 09-Nov-09 18:44:56)