First, let me start off by saying that the job everyone does here is outstanding. It's good to know that you have a resource like this to resort to if you get whacked w/ nasties on the net.

I did get whacked about a week ago, as many people seem to be getting hit lately. Had a few trojans and other malware on my laptop. The first place I came was here. After running through the 8 steps, I proceeded to post my logs so that someone could take a look and direct me if any further action needed to be taken.

Instead, I heard crickets.

Now, I understand you guys are all busy. I re-posted a few times just to make sure my origional post wasn't buried. Had about 4 views of my HJT log too. But no feedback. I'm not skilled in reading those, and if I was, I wouldn't need to post them here.

What you're doing is a good thing. Just try not to let too many get lost in the shuffle. I have no idea if that's what happened in my case, but I'm sure you can understand my situation - depending on someone to check out my log and give me a 'yay' or 'nay' along with any instructions and instead, getting ignored.

Yes we had a big increase to Virus\Malware posts, all of a sudden. Right on X-Mas !
This was compounded by a huge bug issue that even MS couldn't help with
But thankfully some workarounds were found (both at MS and by the good members here at TS)

Not to mention X-Mas had caused some regular members to be obviously away
That with the closure of one of the biggest forums on the Net, (read-> CastleCops website has gone dark) caused a lot of new issues everywhere.

I have now answered your 3 day old (last reply) post

We know that you depend on us, and we want to help. Its just that sometimes the circumstances are unfortunate, as kimsland has stated. We try to help everyone but not all of us know how to do everything, and sometimes the people you need aren't online at the right times for you. We all do this out of the goodness of our hearts with no expectation of thanks or reward, we do not get paid. So sometimes we miss someone here and there.

I totally understand. Like I said, what you do is a huge help to so many, and it is certainly appreciated. I and everyone else is most grateful for all you guys do.

It's not going to slow down any time soon either - The untrained helpers have no idea how to effectively deal with these new forms of malware - instead they reference threads where things may have worked.

Thanks for your vote of confidence
I agree that I personally am not officially trained in Malware removal (ie Malware University)
But just like others here, I feel I do a pretty damn good job at helping members (not just by linking either) By spending large amounts of time meticulously going through the user logs.

Obviously not the ideal world, but I've successfully confirmed all Malware posts I've worked on are solved, having either some of my help involved, or only my help involved.!

We could certainly appreciate more help by you, as confirmed we are busy!

I'm not pointing fingers, and definitely not at you, just saying in general the problem with these boards opposed to other boards is the lack of training for the malware section - anybody can come in here and give any advice.

I don't think official training is absolutely necessary, but some of the advice I have seen given is frustrating to say the least

Yes agreed

I have strongly suggested to Julio (on multiple occasions) to have a private forum for Malware specialists to cross info, and basically better themselves

But sadly this is either impossible (ie it wasn't done) or not done for other unknown reasons

I have also seen some pretty poor support given, in recent times, come to think of it
When I've seen this I've tried to re-inform what may be a better approach. I'm quite happy if this is done on my posts as well (friendly of course )