Good luck with it, I had the same problem with a newer Dell laptop , W7. I did finally fixed it w/Revo uninstaller (free version), but it took it a little time.

But, yea, if you can't connect, that makes it more fun. To try a program to correct, you would have to throw it on a re writable drive just to run.

I suppose you already tried system restore.

Good luck.

 

Pull the hard drive and connect it to another computer with a USB adapter:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=2020&cat=HDD

Scan it with everything you have on the other computer. Then back up her files. Put the drive back in the laptop and use the Acer E-recovery to reload it from scratch if it still won't work right.

 

Sounds like you have one of those fake virus alerts on the computer. TO get your internet back click on the internet then go to tools,internet options,connections,lan settings, then make sure it is set on automatically detect settings. Have a feeling a virus changed it to a proxy server and therfore thats why your not getting internet. Once you click on automatically detect settings hit apply then ok. That should get your internet back

Then dl malwarebytes and once downloaded besure to click the update tab and run a full scan. After that it will restart the computer then it should be clean enough to load AVAST on it.

Goodluck

 

With all the time you've spent trying to get rid of the virus/AVG program, you could have just formatted/reinstalled the OS and been done with it all and have a fresh install..

Then, install the AV of your choice and been back on the net going back to all the sites that infected you in the first place..

I'm a system admin and won't spend any time on trying to 'fix' that kind of problem.. It's so much easier to format and reinstall and start from scratch then to try to fix something that some teenage @ss dreamed up and planted on your machne...

You may ask about your 'data', but then you should have backups of that before this occured, so that's a non issue in my mind..

Good luck with it and I hope you find a fix..

Mitch

 

My wife picked up something that sounds similar last year, also using AVG free.

She clicked on some link for Dancing w/the Stars, and got a 'virus warning/Click here to stop the virus!' pop up. Intead of shutting down the internet and running a real virus scan, she cliked the popup. The thing totally hijacked our browser, would not let us run all the things you normally do to clean up the computer, google results were hijacked so you got bogus links, etc... You could run the AVG in safemode, but it would not clean off the problem. When you could get to the internet, it would not let you download other anit-virus software.

After spending many hours trying to get rid of it, I did like Mitch suggested and wiped the computer clean and reinstalled XP and the other programs we used. All our photos and music were backed up.

Bottom line is some of these things are so nasty, unless you are a computer guru you can try everything and still not get rid of it without a re-format.

 

had a very similar problem a couple days ago, and got the same responses you are getting now (on a different forum). here is the directions in detail on what worked for me:

"This is what you need to do. You are infected with Malware, not a virus. It is a fake AV program that is giving you false positives for viruses. Using a different computer, download a program called MalwareBytes AntiMalware (MBAM using Google to find it). It is freeware. Save the install file on a usb drive. Boot your infected machine into safe mode (mash on F8 while it is booting, choose safe mode without networking). Save file from usb drive onto the infected PC. Install. Run a quick scan. That will take away the main malware program, but it leaves backdoors open to reinstall itself. Reboot into safe mode with networking. Update MBAM. Run a full scan. Remove infected objects. Voila! Problem solved. Then make sure to run windows updates and such. Microsoft makes a decent free AV program, think it is called Security Essentials, that should help you out. "

worked for me in about an hours time.

 

Thanks for the help guys.....but I think it will have to go to "a higher pwer". I downloaded the malaware & another trial version of avg on my pc & saved them to a flash drive. The malaware program loaded but will not run & the av keeps asking for an internet connection/proxy server. I have never re-formatted a h/d before so I am somewhat loathed to try it.

 

have tried to run malaware in safe mode but keeps coming back with run time error
"o"

 

Will it get on the internet???? If it doesnt then this will get it on the internet.
click on the internet then go to tools,internet options,connections,lan settings, then make sure it is set on automatically detect settings. Have a feeling a virus changed it to a proxy server and therfore thats why your not getting internet. Once you click on automatically detect settings hit apply then ok. That should get your internet back.

What i have found out is if you can get to malwarebytes as soon as the computer starts usually it will let you scan. you have to be fast enough to click malware before the fake alert crap pops up.

 

The one I did last year was my first, then I did another one a few months ago.

It was not bad either time, but I had all the discs I needed and did not need to worry about retreiving any data.

You can find step by step instructions on the internet. Print them up and follow them closely.

Basically, reformatting was much easier and much more satisfying than getting nowhere attempting to fight the nasty malware/virus/whatever it was.

Oh, and System Restore was mentioned in an earlier post. I hope you tried that already, as it has saved many a computer.

 

You don't have to reformat - just use the Acer E-recovery or whatever they call it, like I suggested.

I never use automatically detect settings - I just make sure the box is NOT checked to use a proxy server.

Hint - alternate browsers such as Opera and Firefox have their own proxy settings - the IE options only affect IE.

 

She has taken it to the guy who does pc work for us now. I don't have much hair & have even less now but thanks for the help.