Changes To Computer After I Ran SpyBot Search And Destroy

Question

Hi,

We have a Dimension Desktop 8230 with XP and we have three windows accounts on it. Well,when I ran the Ad Aware it picked up 416 items and could not erase them all, but it said it could after the computer restarted. Next, I ran SpyBot Search and Destroy and it found about 5 things. At that time I restarted my computer and whenI went to my husband's windows user account, the desktop came up just like Windows was reinstalled. The Outlook Express addresses are all gone as well as all favorites.

What could make this happen? Malware or something. I have not run the anti-virus yet but I know i am going to have a very unhappy husband when he gets home. I clean everything out once a week for years and this is the first time this has ever happened. Does anyone have any idea why this happened? It only happened on his windows user account. My kids and mine are fine and we still have everything.

Thanks,

Janine

Bugbatter · Answer

See if you can undo the changes that Spybot made by clicking on the Recovery Button in Spybot.

I also suggest that you post at the Spybot forums so they are aware of the problem.
http://forums.spybot.info/

If you find out that it was not a problem with Spybot, perhaps you should undo Ad-aware's changes as well and let them know about it:
http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/

As a last resort, there is always System Restore.

Message Edited by Bugbatter on 03-06-2008 12:45 PM

Pawk · Answer

There is another unfortunate possibility. If it deleted the keys about there being a user account in Outlook, if outlook recreated the profile, it could have wiped the files. And there's not really a normal way of recover them.

Also, as a last resort, check in Documents and Settings for other folders with your husband's name on it, maybe the files are still there.

Virus & Spyware

Changes To Computer After I Ran SpyBot Search And Destroy

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