Help?

[Mimi]

Im just wondering if anyone out there can help - I ran one of those computer cleaners on my computer and it mustve deleted important .dll files as now my AVG anti virus wont run. I've tried uninstalling the anti virus but it wont even let me do that, saying that the 'installation failed'.

Ive done about 3 system restores, to when I know the anti virus worked but to no avail.

Ive thought about doing a system recovery but I have a few programs on my computer that I downloaded from the net, still paid for them so they're not 'corrupt' or anything, like an MP3 downloading software program that Im not too sure will run properly if I copy it onto a disk and then run it after the recovery.

Im quite computer literate and have done many recoveries and played around with the registry but Im at a loss with this one as when I ran regedit to look for any AVG files, there were none.

My computer isnt stuffed, but its heading that way and I need to fix it. Any ideas/advise?

[sandramay]

if you ever run a registry cleaner, spyware program you must always look at the resultss and do not let it delete anything you don't know about. if you know what it is and don't want it, let it go. as for fixing it, a reformat is probably the only way especially if you have tried re-installing avg and everything that isn't working. not good at all to be on the internet with no anti-virus.

Did you know within 5 minutes of reformatting your computer and you are online with no protection other than windows firewall, etc.. you can get soo many viruses, my husband read an article and I forget the numbers, but it was pretty impressive and shocking.

[mejane]

Have you tried a new install of AVG? This should replace the missing DLL files and fix any registry entries that were altered.

[mejane]

If you know which files are missing, you could try finding them on a site like http://www.dll-files.com/

[Mimi]

Thanks for the replies girls, and thanks for that site mejane. I actually looked online this morning for another antivirus because I managed to uninstall AVG then went to reinstall it and it wouldnt do it. So now Im using avast and when I rebooted after the installation finished, it did this HUGE scan - it took half the day! - and poor little puter had sooo many viruses on her! Everytime it found a virus it would give you all these options for what to do, like repair or delete or move, so i did that. Now, puter is running well - but i am monitoring it and if it stuffs up again I'll do a reconfig of the whole thing.

And this time, I did take care not to delete anything I didnt know, so I would press 'repair' and then if it was unrepairable then I would press delete. All of the infected files were unrepairable. AVG never picked up on any of this, I think it was just a basic scan. Anyway, hopefully this one will do!

[mejane]

Wow, scary to think AVG missed so much. I use Vet Anti-Virus (http://www.australis.net/vet_anti-virus.php) myself, don't quite trust the free programs. Although I have the free personal edition of Ad-Aware (http://www.thebiggestloser.com.au/contestant/biography/Tracy.aspx) - my PC was so clogged up with ads and spyware until I ran that.

[sandramay]

I use avg free, you can pay $70 for the full edition... I use registry mechanic and spyware doctor to remove my adaware and programs that don't uninstall properly.