Removing Malicious Adware Files Safely from System32

[Hoofbeat]

Since allowing Active-X to run the other day on my computer I keep getting annoying pop-ups that neither my firewall nor my pop-up blocker prevent. When running Norton's Virus Checker it finds these adware files and points out that they're malicious but says the only way I can remove them is to delete them from my hard drive. However, all of these 'malicious' files are contained within the folder "C:/WINDOWS/System32" and I know that if I delete anything incorrectly from this folder it will affect my system's registry.

Is there any sure fire way of removing these malicious files without running the risk of corrupting my computer? Thanks (PS. Yes I know that I shouldn't use IE as Firefox is much better, but old habits die hard!)

 

[Supaiku]

Chances are if Norton finds they they are virus' or spyware. It's sort of hard to tell what might mess it up though. You might be able to find a list of files that are supposed to be there but that could vary slightly from computer to computer. You could always create a system restore point and then delete them, I'd check into how exactly to restore them if windows is unbootable though (I'm pretty sure you can use the install disk). Or if it does get messed up you can do a repair install which keeps all your settings and files but re-installes all the windows files and the like. It would probably get rid of those files and would keep all your settings.

You might try also scanning with Adawre and Spybot Search and Destroy.

 

[Hoofbeat]

Chances are if Norton finds they they are virus' or spyware. It's sort of hard to tell what might mess it up though. You might be able to find a list of files that are supposed to be there but that could vary slightly from computer to computer. You could always create a system restore point and then delete them, I'd check into how exactly to restore them if windows is unbootable though (I'm pretty sure you can use the install disk). Or if it does get messed up you can do a repair install which keeps all your settings and files but re-installes all the windows files and the like. It would probably get rid of those files and would keep all your settings.

You might try also scanning with Adawre and Spybot Search and Destroy.

Thanks. When Norton found them I click on the more info button and accessed their web info about these files and they say they're only low risk. I did a search on my computer for "adware" etc but it couldn't find any. However, Norton still picks up these files and it recognises that they're adware even though they have different file names.

Unfortunately, I don't feel confident enough to mess around too much with my computer as I'm not aware of how to create a restore point etc etc

 

[FredGarvin]

I just went through the same thing with a trojan program. I could not delete the files associated without doing a few steps.

If you do a scan with Norton, does it say what the file name is? If so, look it up on their site under the virus encyclopedia. It will tell you exactly how to get rid of it. I had to jump through a few hoops to get rid of them.

If you really want a great ad-ware remover, I HIGHLY recommend Ad-Aware (and it's free):

http://www.lavasoft.de/

 

[Ryoukomaru]

I don't know if Norton gives you the name and location of the infected files since i don't use it because it is crap, you can always do a search on google with those files names and find out if there are system files. Then you can safely delete them.