What's wrong with my computer? Can anyone help?

[tuxedomarty]

Don't know if any of you can help, but lately since sometime last week I think, I've been having a MAJOR problem with my computer. Things like Norton Security Suite, Malware Bytes, and Disk Clean Up will not work unless the computer is in safe mode, and that means I have to turn the computer off cold alot of times so I can get it into safe mode, and I can't run any of the programs such as said ones unless I do put it in safe mode, and it's driving me mad. Looking at the Programs and Features section under "Control Panel", all I see that I recently installed are Spotify, Real Player, Mozilla Maintenance Service, Apple Application Services, iTunes, Adobe Flash Player 11 Plugin, and Adobe Flash Player 11 ActiveX. What the hell is wrong? How do I fix this?

[aesling]

My first guess without more info would be that some kind of malware is disabling your antivirus programs. If you're doing a full scan with Malware Bytes in safe mode and it's not finding anything, you might want to get a utility to do a boot scan, and scan while your computer is starting up.

[ZephyrStar]

Would agree. Try AVG?
In these cases a lot of the time though it might be good (though not really easy or helpful) to reformat and reinstall windows from the ground up.

[post-it]

Malware .. DOS Level Malware!!!

[ZephyrStar]

I think I have a 3.5" floppy with F-Prot on it around here somewhere

[post-it]

that's not what I mean by DOS-level; system 7 & 8 are not designed to handle dos. The only way to fight a dos-level malwate is to boot your system from a flash-drive and then run the Malware Program.

[aesling]

Windows hasn't been based on DOS since NT....

[post-it]

Agreed. Q: if a low level rougue program were installed, activated and imbedded into Vista ... How would Vista find it? .. ... .... A: it can't find it! ( Nortons still understands DOS and only safe mode can be used -- which means that Nortons was its target. )
.. The question asked states that, "nothing can find it" and "safe mode is having an issue too!"
.
.. therefore the malware is small and has already embedded itself. Vista, 7 & 8 are not DOS supportive and would never see the running malware. As such, it would be advised to Boot the conputer from a non-infected source and also have a Malware Program running from that same clean boot to to trap and erase the program from the hard drive while the trouble maker is not running. ( you can't make a mirror of a program if the program in question doesn't know its being hunted ^__^ )

[Qyot27]

Ditch Norton. It's awful. Has been for over a decade.

Boot into an Ubuntu LiveCD. Destroy the contents of C:\Users\Username\Local Settings\Temp (replace 'C:\Users' with 'C:\Documents and Settings' if using XP). Be aware, of course, that it won't say 'C:\' - the path leading to the Windows partition will be different (/media/<UUID>, to be specific), but as long as you know you're navigating in the Windows partition, clear out that Temp cache.

When you're done, boot back into Windows.

Use AVG or Avast! if it's really of concern. For brownie points, Avast! has a Linux version which can be used to scan/clean up the Windows partition. It uses the same definitions as the Windows version, but A) uses a much less resource-hungry interface and B) since it's not running on Windows, it stops the malware from interfering with the scan/removal.

Use RKUnhooker to see if you've been infected by a rootkit, and if it finds anything, tell it to unhook those things, and then run ComboFix to remove them.

Run scans with Spybot and Malwarebytes. Repeat as many times as necessary until you get no hits. Tell Spybot to Immunize the computer (the immunization feature is actually the important reason to keep Spybot around, even if you never run scans with it again).

Run CCleaner to clear up the basic stuff, then run the Registry cleaner over and over again until it stops finding things.

Always use Adblock Plus, Adblock Plus Popup Addon, and Flashblock extensions in Firefox (this also just cuts down on general annoyance and embedded crap on webpages chewing up resources, but it may also have a prophylactic effect against malware). For the ultra-paranoid, use NoScript (which actually *does* stop malware since JavaScript is an extremely common point-of-entry).

Use Lynx to look at porn, you pervert.