So, this has happened to my wife’s laptop before, but my father-in-law got the Malware from hell. It’s the one that poses as a virus scanner and unless you “buy” their product every time you get on the internets or click the button of “No” (that you don’t want to protect your computer), connstant popup windows until you give in an “Buy.” In fact, the Malware is pretty tricky as it disables you from any fix you want to do in your control panel or even running RegEdit from the command line.

A Google search here is simply useless as you get links to other products to fix the problem. Oh, and btw: If you buy the product that is holding you hostage, nothing happens but you just lost $49.
So Ken dropped off his laptop and I started fiddling around in SAFE mode, but nothing was really working for me (there is sort of fix (in varitions) of editing the Registry (though the instructions do leave out a few steps. Oh, and if you try to run a Malware removal program, well it won’t work and you get a faux error message.

I think the first sign for me that this was a hoax is that when you try to run FireFox, the Title of the program has “Internet Explorer” and, this really bothers me, two exclamation points (no one in their right mind, even in Redmond, would use !! in an error message.

I called Ken and said I couldn’t fix it. He came over today and said that he had an idea and it works.

HERE’S one fix:

• Start up in Safe Mode (Hold down the F8 after restart).
• Log in
• Delete your copy of your Malware Removal program.
• Download a new copy of a Malware Program (Malwarebtyes Anti-Malware free version worked fine for us).
• Run the program in quick mode and in 10-15 minutes or so, it’ll find the trojan and follow the prompts.
• The program will want to restart the computer and yes, you should.
• And you are good to go.

LESSONS

• Stuff happens and sometimes a Google search is only a string of paid advertisements.
• The best solutions are the free ones.
• If you can, buy a Mac. If that make you vomit in your mouth, then run a Linux distro (you simply do not have this issue as much or at all under those platforms.