Help me fix my computer?

[Mystical Sand]

*wicked depressed* Okay; here's the problem (and yes, I know this isn't a tech-support forum, but I don't understand all that code crap on those things, and I trust you guys more than a bunch of TOTAL strangers, so I'm asking for someone to hopefully tell me at least what's WRONG with my computer) :

When I hit ctrl+alt+delete, my task manager pops up for about 2 seconds and then shuts itself. I ran AdAware SE, Spybot Seek&Destroy, and Norton, deleted everything they found, reset the computer, and am still having the problem. I looked on google and someone with a similar problem said to re-name the taskmgr.exe file... problem is I ran a search and it says I don't have any such file. The closest I had was the TASKMGR.EXE-20256C55.pf (prefetch file), so I tried renaming that but it didn't help.

So my questions are: has anyone had something similar happen, and if so, how did you fix it? And for the record, I'm not going to try that HighjackThis thing because I wouldn't understand any of what came out of it anyway and because downloading crap is probably what caused the problem in the first place. T_T;

[gav]

i cant really do much. Try going to My computer, open yur HD, go to WINDOWS folder, and go to system 32, there should be a taskmgr there assuming you are using window XP

[Richard]

It sounds like a trojan to me. Firstly, enter safe mode (hit F8 before the windows logo appears at startup) update your virus definitions then run a full virus scan. Then do AA/Spybot checks again. If that doesn't work, try doing a system restore (start, all programs, accessories, system tools) to an earlier date.

If possible, can you run Hijackthis? The download link to it is here: www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/hijackthis.zip
It's pretty simple to use, just post or PM me the log file it creates.

[gav]

what does safe mode do??

[Richard]

gav said:

what does safe mode do??

Loads up windows with minimal device drivers, startup processes etc.

[jp80]

BTW trust me from my experience over 4 years in computering and from the opinion of security administrators I knew as well, though Norton is the most widely AV known for beginners, it is also one of the less secure for preventing virus to infect your pc, and detecting them once they infiltrated, and the best protection is Mc Afee. so you'd better get an updated version of it, and use it to scan ur pc in safe mode.