oldNslow wrote on 12/08/12 at 10:12:22:The last time one of those things popped up on my screen I just reached over and hit the off switch on the surge protector and shut everything down. Restarted in safe mode and did a system restore back a couple of days. The bogus stuff was gone when I rebooted normally.
May not work all the time but it's quick and easy and I don't think it can hurt to try. I'm still running XP by the way.
Even tho that is a "last ditch effort", you're probably right. The problem with "pulling the plug" is that Windows creates disk buffers when it's running called swap files. These are files that are "virtual memory"; i.e., a place to store stuff temporarily. If you shut down abruptly, the swap files disappear, so the next time Windows starts, there could be some problems. This is one of those actions that will eventually cause your system to crash altogether (it's a WHEN not IF type problem!). So pulling the plug (removing power) is a last resort to ANY computer, but may be necessary when the alternative is even more horrible.
The separate "boot disk" (there are several of these) mentioned earlier will successfully boot your computer, but only a diagnostic mode. So it gets your foot in the door, but unless you have at least a fundamental knowledge of Windows, you are still infected with the virus and back at square one!