Can not remove a virus

Hi,
I am trying to help my nephew who has windows 98 and has a virus that has affected 101 files in the computer according to the on-line virus scan by Norton. All files are from games this young lad downloaded into his computer. This all started when the home page would keep changing or would not stay as the home page. It appears the virus is called VBS.loveletter.AS and the Norton tool remover says it's one of the love letter ones that can not be removed. Hopefully I read that correctly. The computer is approx 2 to 3 yrs old, came with McAfee but after it's free trial period was never registered and no live updates were done. I think the only choice is to FDISK and Formatt but wanted to see if anyone has any other recommendations first ??? The possible cause for the home page issue is a virus called "Becky" from what I gather when I queried Microsoft knowledge base...Any help will be greatly appreciated...

 

Removal instructions:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/vbs.loveletter.as.html

 

Hi Abraxas,
Thank you for your quick reply. I will give the info you provided a try. I am pretty sure I have paper work showing that this particular virus was not one of the removable ones. However, I will still try what you have given me. I will get back to you this weekend and let you know how I made out.

 

No the Virus is removeable. That is not the problem! The problem is that it deletes renames and changes so many files and does other damage.

Things that now you cannot tell what was done.

You need to reinstall everything after a format to be sure.

Sorry!

Mike

 

Hi Mflynn,
I thank you also, and as I mentioned in my original post, I was not sure if I had read that info correctly. Appreciate your help
and bringing me up to snuff on it. Now I can focus on doing the FDISK and FORMAT. I will let everyone know how I make out some time this weekend...Thanks again

 

There is probably no such thing as an "unremovable" virus. Any virus can be removed. Whether it is designated as "removable" has more to do with the damage that will be done by removing it than the removal itself, as mflynn has pointed out. An "inoperable" tumor can, in fact, be operated on, but at the risk of the patient.

You may need to do a repair installation after removing the virus, and your apps could be damaged and require some reinstallation, too.

Format is the ultimate solution.

 

Thank you...every little bit of advice helps.