Yesterday I removed some malware called ThinkPoint from a coworker’s laptop, and after removing the virus and installing Microsoft Security Essentials I received the following error when I tried to run it: This happens because the virus adds popular antivirus applications to a list of restricted programs on your computer. Even though the virus was gone the restriction was not.  To solve this problem, open REGEDIT and delete the key \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\DisallowRun.

A coworker brought me a laptop (accompanied by the required food bribery) and asked me to remove a virus that had started popping up.  I booted up the laptop and, not at all surprisingly, it was infected with a Fake Security Scanner of a new and particularly nasty variety. It was called ThinkPoint and it replaces explorer.exe as your Windows shell, so as soon as you login ThinkPoint is all you see and all you [...]

It happens at least once a week: a client, friend, or relative calls me in a panic and proceeds to explain, often in colorful terms, that their computer is acting strangely and they’re afraid that they’ve caught a virus. I listen calmly, then make a trip to their home or business to diagnose the problem for myself. In my experience one, maybe two of these calls out of ten actually result in the discovery of [...]