Virus is locking my Unreal Tournament

[Slowhand]

Hey everyone, I'm working on getting rid of a nasty virus right now. Most viruses/spyware/hijackers I've seen and fixed before...so I'm not a total noob, but for the fun of it, I clicked my quick launch icon of my Unreal Tournament game...and it gave me an error saying.."game will have to be reinstalled and CD key given again".

Well I've never seen this happen. Does it indicate more, what the virus might be. Both IE and Chrome are jacked (with different redirects even) but my game?????

Any tips or help is certainly appreciated.

 

[Elixer]

And why do you think that this is a virus?

 

[Slowhand]

And why do you think that this is a virus?

Ummm, well spyware, adware, malware, hijackers, so far, and the anti virus program picked up a few things....and something is still infecting the system. So do you have any suggestions?

 

[John Connor]

Run rKill
Adwcleaner
Junkware removal tool
Tdsskiller
Super antispyware
Malwarebytes

And if you want to really scan the crap out of the machine check out Herdprotect. (Won't work with OpenDNS. Must use VPN or change DNS temporally)

Or a Bitdefender Rescue disk that you boot.

You could also deploy Freefixer and make damn sure you research each component before removal.

Hijackthis can help. And Autoruns may clue you into dll's or start up scripts.

 

[Slowhand]

Run rKill
Adwcleaner
Junkware removal tool
Tdsskiller
Super antispyware
Malwarebytes

And if you want to really scan the crap out of the machine check out Herdprotect. (Won't work with OpenDNS. Must use VPN or change DNS temporally)

Or a Bitdefender Rescue disk that you boot.

You could also deploy Freefixer and make damn sure you research each component before removal.

Hijackthis can help. And Autoruns may clue you into dll's or start up scripts.

Thank you so much John. I've run all these already:

rKill
Adwcleaner
Junkware removal tool
Tdsskiller
Malwarebytes
Hijackthis

I don't think I have the level of skill or knowledge that you have. Never used a Bitdefender or Freefixer or Autoruns...but I'm willing to learn and try it.

I've gotten quite a lot of junk off the machine, but somethings are being stubborn.... Thanks for your time and advice

 

[JEDIYoda]

I don't think I have the level of skill or knowledge that you have. Never used a Bitdefender or Freefixer or Autoruns...but I'm willing to learn and try it.

I've gotten quite a lot of junk off the machine, but somethings are being stubborn.... Thanks for your time and advice

It is rare for a virus to just attack a game.......

 

[Slowhand]

I agree. It didn't attack just the game....oh no! It attacked the whole computer.

 

[Elixer]

I agree. It didn't attack just the game....oh no! It attacked the whole computer.

It would be far better to clean install the OS again, in the case of widespread malware.

 

[Slowhand]

I 100% agree. I'm just being stubborn...seeing if can beat the virus..lol. I am prepared to slick the HD, but i've made a lot of progress and still want to keep trying..in the end you are totally right though.

 

[John Connor]

Did you try the Bitdefender Rescue Disk yet?

 

[Slowhand]

No I haven't I guess I should find where I can download it, learn it and give it a try....any tips?

 

[John Connor]

http://www.bitdefender.com/support/how-to-create-a-bitdefender-rescue-cd-627.html

http://download.bitdefender.com/rescue_cd/

 

[Fardringle]

"game will have to be reinstalled and CD key given again"

Have you tried doing what the message says to do and reinstall the game? It's entirely possible that this isn't a malware problem at all, and simply a problem with the game installation itself.

 

[Mushkins]

Have you tried doing what the message says to do and reinstall the game? It's entirely possible that this isn't a malware problem at all, and simply a problem with the game installation itself.

More than likely it wasn't that the virus targeted "Unreal Tournament" specifically, but it was a virus designed to delete all sorts of files from any and all installed programs. Which means even if the OP clears the virus, he's still going to have to reinstall the game to fix it.

Though honestly if there's a system with a virus on it that deleted files from programs it's time to nuke it from orbit and start over.

 

[John Connor]

I hate that nuke option idea everyone tosses out there. You can always do a repair install and you can always reinstall the game. I have NEVER had to reinstall my OS. In fact I would hate to do that and lose all my settings and programs, not to mention backing up all my data. Huge PITA to say the least. This quit frankly is why I periodically clone my computer.

So in summary, the nuke option is never an option for me.

 

[Slowhand]

Thanks guys for your feedback....I think I'll try to rescue it. That bitdefender looks pretty smart......