Removing Malware

It happens to everyone now and again, no matter how hard you try- or how many Antivirus, Spyware cleaners, etc you intall. One of our PC's got the "Your system is Infected" as your desktop wallpaper display, you can no longer get to the task manager to shut down any unwanted programs, etc. You run through several antivirus programs such as Vipre, McAfee Enterprise, Trend Micro Online (House Call) and Webroot Spysweeper with Antivirus and all to no avail. It is still there and you cannot change the desktop wallpaper to remove it, even turning off System restore and going into Safe mode (it was a Win XP computer).

How To Clean this Malware
First off, make certain everything is backed up (it was). There is an excellant How-to over at GeeksToGo.com under their Forum, Security » Virus, Spyware and Trojan Removal. They have a great Malware Cleaning guide which I followed:
Malware and Spyware Cleaning Guide.

The steps are as follows and they are very well scripted and well thought out:
1.Preparation- Install a Temporary File Cleaner and run it- TFC (Temp File Cleaner)
2.Preparation- Create a System Restore point using the utility SysRestorePoint
3.Preparation- Make a Registry Backup using ERUNT (Emergency Recovery Utility NT)
4. Step One- Scan for Malware/Adware/Spyware using Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

There are a few more steps on GeeksToGo but after doing the steps 1 to 4 the PC was cleaned up, the desktop wallpaper "Your system is Infected" was destroyed, and we could get to the Task Manager again. All is well in Computerdom, again!!