Serious Problems

[Sposhi]

Got my Dad's PC here and am trying to fix whatever he did to it..

Symptoms include: iexplore.exe appearing twice in processes, unable to print (spoolsv.exe keeps closing or disappearing), LSPFIX runs in safe mode but when run in normal it says winsock2 might need reinstalling.

If I run IE8 and then close it, the desktop icons become disabled and I have to close iexplore.exe via task manager to be able to open anything via desktop.

If I cannot find a solution to all of this, I will have to format and reinstall his OS. If I can find a solution, I will have a lot of uninstalling to do. I keep telling him not to download most of this junk, but....

Ran Anti-Malware on 7/18 and will submit that log in addition to hijackthis' log. Ran Anti-Malware today and it says it's clean, but all the symptoms remain.

I have his PC at my house now so I can spend more time on it.Thank you in advance for taking a look!!

I am attaching both logs because they're too long to post....

 

[strategic]

First of all, welcome to Techspot!
Please follow the procedure in the link below using the programs listed (you'll need to disable the Norton 360.
https://www.techspot.com/community/...lware-removal-preliminary-instructions.58138/
Another suggestion is that you have way too many toolbars running, I would remove them, keep maybe 1 or 2 that you like.

 

[Badfinger]

If Dad's PC seems too much of a headache, I'd go this route: wipe and drop a fresh Windows install, after backing up his old data to your PC if desirable, make a check list before hand of what he uses to also reinstall, especially if he's one of those ignorant and or messy 1 partition/1 hard drive folk.

Having said that... add winpatrol as a preventative measure once his fix is complete, you'll see it's value pretty quickly, and it's usable freely, paid gets you 1 additional feature.

I know I keep plugging it, but it is an awesome program that everyone should use these days.

 

[Sposhi]

Hi and thanks for the response and the welcome!! Finally found forums where people actually respond..

I have disabled Norton and completed another run of CCleaner and am now running a full scan with Anti-Malware... (I'm on a different PC now).. Do you want me to re-up the logs after I'm done with all this?

I definitely agree with you on the toolbars.. I never use em and like I said I've told my Dad to stay away from them and other misc apps.. So hopefully I will be doing a lot of uninstalling instead of performing a system recovery. bleh.

 

[strategic]

Hi and thanks for the response and the welcome!! Finally found forums where people actually respond..

I have disabled Norton and completed another run of CCleaner and am now running a full scan with Anti-Malware... (I'm on a different PC now).. Do you want me to re-up the logs after I'm done with all this?

I definitely agree with you on the toolbars.. I never use em and like I said I've told my Dad to stay away from them and other misc apps.. So hopefully I will be doing a lot of uninstalling instead of performing a system recovery. bleh.

Toolbars make a difference on your PC. efficiency, and they can sneak in from almost anywhere, you've probably noticed that when installing ccleaner- that's one place it can get in (Yahoo toolbar, I think).
After you complete the scanning, in the order given, yes please upload the log files.
As for the iexplore appearing twice, I think I read somewhere on this forum that it's normal if you have IE8 installed, is that the version you are running? I strictly use Firefox at home, and work, but I have IE8 installed at work, I'll have to look into that when I return.

 

[Badfinger]

Ah yeah, all the hidden BS that non-experts get loaded up with if not careful, including those toolbars.
Pretty sick really what is tolerated these days.
Mention Norton anything for a belly laugh (Kings of bloatware).
I too am Firefox user, though Opera, Safari and Chrome are cool as well, I've just got too used to FF.

 

[Sposhi]

As for the iexplore appearing twice, I think I read somewhere on this forum that it's normal if you have IE8 installed, is that the version you are running? I strictly use Firefox at home, and work, but I have IE8 installed at work, I'll have to look into that when I return.

Yeah I just checked on this PC and iexplore.exe appears twice so it must be normal. Thanks for pointing that out!!

I'm not a fan of Norton and run Kaspersky on my 2 PCs.. I will definitely look into Firefox because I've heard of so many problems with IE...

I just can't figure out why the desktop locks after exiting the browser. It stays locked until I end the iexplore.exe process... Never seen that happen before.

MBAM is about done and there are 0 infected, so that's a good sign.. I really like that CCleaner app btw!!!

 

[Sposhi]

Ok all scans are complete and I've removed some of the toolbars and IE8 is finally functioning normally again...

I don't know what the deal with the printer is.. I am going to bring the PC back to my Dad's house and try reinstalling it.. Last time we tried that, I received a message saying spoolsv needs to be running.. The default printer is missing from the list of printers as well...

I tried running spoolsv.exe from the prompt and it ran then stopped and disappeared from the processes list. Anyway, here are the updated mbam and hjt logs and I thank you again for your help!!