Clueless Mac user seeks help deleting viruses from PC.

July 4, 2008 4:45 PM

Anti-virus software managed to remove most of the viruses from my mother's computer. However, two files remain. How proactive do I need to be about deleting them?

I am a Mac user and have no experience dealing with computer viruses, so please pardon any stupid statements I might make here. My mother's computer was recently infected with a whole slew of viruses, because my brother the PC user gave her anti-spyware software but completely neglected to make sure she had any virus protection. I used Defender Pro (don't know if that was a good choice, but it and McAfee were all that was available at 10 PM at Wal-Mart in my hometown) to get rid of almost all of the viruses. However, two infected files and their subfiles still remain - mtewdh.dll and tdffdl.dll. Google tells me that these files host viruses that steal online gaming passwords. My mother doesn't online game, so it's not an issue, but should I be more worried about them and be more proactive about getting rid of them? If so, what on earth do I do? Or should I assume that Defender Pro will update its antivirus definitions at some point and will get rid of them? unfortunately, I am not PC savvy enough to have any clue about what to do here. I've found this explanation for how to get rid of one, but I'm nervous about screwing something up.

posted by dropkick queen to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Try running another couple programs to be safe.

There's a free online virus scanner here that may help. You may also want to try running anti-spyware in addition to virus software, and Ad-aware is another free program that you can download and install.

Try running both of those first and see if they take care of the problem automatically. Trend Micro also tells you about each virus and tells you the perils of leaving it alone vs. removing it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:51 PM on July 4

Download -- free -- both Ad Aware and Spybot from here. Then install and run both of them.

These are sortof the standards, that I know of anyways; they usually grab anything lefthanded and get rid of it.
posted by dancestoblue at 5:01 PM on July 4

Defender Pro has its own anti-spyware program which I've installed and run, plus as I said, my brother made sure she had anti-spyware software, so that came up clean. However, when I installed DP, it said that it treats other anti-virus programs as, well, viruses. so I'm not sure if I can install and run another program (maybe if I turn it off? I'll give that a shot).
posted by dropkick queen at 5:30 PM on July 4

Go here for more FREE and good antivirus and antispyware downloads.
posted by rumbles at 5:31 PM on July 4

I may be paranoid, but I'd wipe back the machine and start over; saving what ever important documents you can. I never trust a machine once its been compromised.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 6:14 PM on July 4

I may be paranoid, but I'd wipe back the machine and start over; saving what ever important documents you can. I never trust a machine once its been compromised.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 8:14 PM on July 4 [+] [!]


I'd say that's the ideal but man, it's a whole lotta work, esp for someone who's not a Windoze person, who's unfamiliar with the whole show. I don't think our OP wants to go through that. And if she can get the puter cleaned, and set up an auto-updating set of anti-virus, anti-spyware, maybe firewall software, she'll be fine.

Really, the whole thing is just a huge PITA; I'm currently protected, and well protected -- anti-spyware, anti-virus, good firewall, blah blah blah -- but it took me years to learn what I wanted to use, and why, and how to use it. And if you're interested in what I've found best to protect my puters from the denizens of the cyber world, let me know -- it's all freeware, it's all good, takes a bit to download and set it up but if you do then you're rock solid, ain't nothing gonna 'get ya.'

And hey dropkick queen, if you want to test your firewall for vulnerabilities, go to Shields Up. Shields Up is a great site to test your puter against the garbage that comes our way if we're not hidden well behind a nice firewall. (Test 'File Sharing' and 'Common Ports' and 'All Service Ports.')

And thanx, rumbles, for the link -- it's saved. Appreciate it.
posted by dancestoblue at 6:43 PM on July 4

A re-install of windows isn't bad, on a modern machine, it will take 30-40 minutes, another 15-20 to install firefox and whatever other software your mom used and not only will you know that there isn't a single piece of malware of trace of a virus anywhere, you also won't be tracking down how to get rid of that last file that somehow reinfected itself when you rebooted.

(A side note, I'm still sort of amused when I hear Windows people talk about how secure they are with their firewall and anti-virus and anti-popup and anti-malware and anti-whatevers. Then again, I'm know I'm one of these obnoxious twits at times.)
posted by Brian Puccio at 7:28 PM on July 4

Another recommended AV package.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 8:01 PM on July 4

Be careful putting two anti-virus programs on the same machine as it can really screw stuff up. I wouldn't do it myself.
posted by fshgrl at 8:05 PM on July 4

Nowadays malware does all sorts of things, so you can't just assume that you've got a couple left that'll sit there harmlessly if she doesn't play WoW. If you want her to be able to safely use ecommerce, online banking, email, etc., and know the PC isn't being used to spam or do DOS attacks, then you have to wipe everything, get it up to date with patches, install a decent security suite, set everything to auto-update, make her use a non-admin account and give her some basic guidelines on dealing with downloads, scams, etc.

It'll probably still get infected again somehow, but you might get a year without being called out as tech support if you're lucky.
posted by malevolent at 12:56 AM on July 5

(People I know who've repeatedly ended up having to reinstall & protect family computers now tend to take a hard line and insist that they either get a Mac or have Linux installed)
posted by malevolent at 1:00 AM on July 5

If you can make or borrow a boot disk, you can get in there and delete the files.
posted by theora55 at 4:45 AM on July 5

thanks to everyone for your input - unfortunately, I wasn't able to figure out the issue in the time I had (visiting for the holidays) but I will put some of these suggestions to the test when I go back in a week or so. I think finding and/or creating a boot disk will be the way to go. That, or I'm taking home my old Mac desktop.
posted by dropkick queen at 12:45 PM on July 9