Hello Captdave
Thank-you for posting your question. I am sorry to here you have been
infected with the Beagle.AC@mm virus, this is a particularly common
virus at the moment but luckily it is relatively easy (as easy as any
of them are at any rate) to get rid off and you need to follow a few
steps to accomplish this successfully.
In your question it states that "would it help to move to XP",
unfortunately the answer to this question is no. Although XP is the
best operating system that Microsoft currently produce for the home
user it would not help you in this case. The Beagle.AC@mm virus
attacks all users using the Windows platforms, it does not effect
these systems:
DOS, Linux, Macintosh, Macintosh OS X, Microsoft IIS, Novell Netware, OS/2, UNIX
In the future the best thing you can do is to install a good firewall
(there are many excellent free ones) and keep your virus checker up to
date.
How to remove your virus can be found on this page:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.beagle.ac@mm.html
These are the basic steps you need to follow:
1) Disable System Restore (Windows Me/XP).
2) Update the virus definitions.
3) Restart the computer in Safe mode or VGA mode.
4) Run a full system scan and delete all the files detected as W32.Beagle.AC@mm.
5) Delete the value that was added to the registry.
Full details of these steps can be found on the page mentioned above -
the instructions are right at the bottom of the page under "removal
instructions". (Step 1 is especially important and one many people
forget.)
I wish you well in ridding your PC of this virus, if you have any
further questions or queries on this subject please ask for
clarification and I will do my best to help. |
