How to repair Internet Explorer

[Lucio]

Ok, I'm pretty good at getting a virus ridden PC back into working order, but this one had me stumped. I'd finally got a couple of AV programs onto the system (Malwarebytes and MS Security Essentials), cleaned up the majority of the viruses, recovered the users documents and created a new user profile.


What I couldn't do however, was regain control of the old user's internet browser. It was IE7, and basically hijacked any visited webpage to "blank" page (even going to a site via it's IP address), that kept trying to redownload the viruses. I'd caught and cleaned the registry settings that forced new nameservers, tried to disable all the applications that IE had loaded but still the problem wouldn't go away.


What am I missing that provides such fundamental control over someone's internet browser and how do you start cleaning it?

[Giraffe]

IE7 (and 6) is rather vulnerable, so installing IE8 might help.

As for repairing IE, MS haven't managed it in getting on for a couple of decades, so you could make a fortune if you can!

[vinnyT]

It could be that the hosts file has been altered by the nasties, take a look here http://malektips.com/spyware_adware_0017.html, though this site only refers to win98, 2000 and xp.

If he has vista/7, then the “host” file is under C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\ or %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\ and hence cannot be edited by normal users.To edit the host file, Click Start – search for “Notepad“, right-click and select “Run as Administrator“. This should launch notepad with elevated privileges. Now, open the host file from the File menu, edit and save.

Hope this helps.