Good evening,

I'm really struggling with this problem and help you can offer would be appreciated.

I'm trying to clean up a laptop running on xp sp3 which is behaving really oddly and am going through the 8 step virus removal guide.

I've removed avg 8, and had real problems installing Avira in that the laptop just refused to run the setup file. After 3 attemps in normal mode and safe mode it finally run, installed and I was able to perform a full scan.

I also installed Comodo and ccleaner with relative ease.

My problem is now that I can't install Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. I can't download the setup file from the internet because whenever I click on any link I'm re-directed to somewhere completely different. The only way that I can get the file onto the laptop is by downloading it onto another machine and put it on the infected laptop using a flash drive. But although I can get the file onto the laptop, it simply won't run in either safe mode or normal mode. After double clicking (or right click and 'open') the egg timer appears for a moment and then nothing else - even if left for over half an hour.

Can anyone recommend a solution please?

Here are the results of the 2 avira scans:

What computer do you have, and what is the configuration. To what is it connected. How old is the hard drive? How much memory do you have?

Thanks for your reply raybay.

It's my boss's laptop and it's a 3 year old HP Pavilion dv8000 running xp service pack 3. As it stands it was connected wirelessly to his own network at home and now it's connected to my wireless network at home where I'm also running my own laptop with no problems.

The laptop has 1024mb memory.

I hope that this helps.

So what's the issue? Please do what you mentioned
By the way this may help too:
Special case where after installing MBAM and SAS they will not update or run
Read here: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic116603.html

Sorry Kimsland, I failed to mention that although I can get the file onto the laptop, it simply won't run in either safe mode or normal mode. After double clicking (or right click and 'open') the egg timer appears for a moment and then nothing else - even if left for over half an hour.

Original post has been updated to include this.

Start-->Run--> MSconfig
Select Diagnostic startup
Then restart

Please note Diagnostic Mode will come up with limited drivers
ie There may be some, that you do not want to temporarily disable
Just do them all (ie Diagnostic Mode) to begin with

Okay, started up in diagnostic mode and still the file does not seem to run. This file was downloaded from the link in the 8 step guide.

When looking at the process tab in task manager it shows this application with 3912kb memory useage but no cpu useage.

I have two more options

1.
Download EndItAll
Extract, then run Setup
Then run the EndItAll application
Then click on the skull heads
Then close EndItAll

2.
Restart, and press F8, then select Safe Mode with Networking

Thanks for all of your help kimsland.

Ended up having to rename sdfix before doing a full scan and all now seems to be okay.

Thanks for the update
Renaming I should remember that :/