ComboFix

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Just my 2 cents: I've only used it once, and the computer was pretty messed up, but the machine wouldn't boot at all afterward.
 

Howell

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Feb 24, 2003
Messages
4,740
Location
Chattanooga, TN
Meh. I've had better luck with my multi-layered approach.

I didn't try S&D but MB found two files and two registry entries that needed to be removed. Unfortunately letting MB removing those entries would send the machine into a chkdsk cycle that couldn't make it past 10% on the second phase without a spontaneous reboot and could only be made bootable again with "last known good".

On the contrary, Combofix found 6 or 7 files that needed to be removed, most of which were .dat files.

Granted I've only used it once but I was very impressed.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
21,564
Location
I am omnipresent
Spyware is rough. One more good tool is always better than no good tools.

I had the unmitigated joy of dealing with something called "Windows Police Pro" today that prevents the execution of any other program on the system after it is loaded and appeared to auto-load with Windows Explorer, even in safe mode.

Granted that killing it was mostly just a matter of scrubbing the executable from a WinPE boot drive, but that action by itself is out of the reach of about 95% of Windows users.
 

Howell

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Feb 24, 2003
Messages
4,740
Location
Chattanooga, TN
I cleaned one more machine yesterday with ComboFix. I know I sound like a pimp but it really is that fire and forget. The machine I first mentioned was infected with Windows Police Pro and my coworker cleaned that off with Viper I think and I finished cleaning the rest of the spyware off.

This latest infection kept IE and mstsc from running. Irritating. It took a long time for the clean to run. I thought it had locked up twice until I just let it run.

I hate spyware; It is such a waste of time.
 

CougTek

Serial computer killer
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
8,724
Location
Québec, Québec
I've used ComboFix regularly for several months now and it is part of my cleaning routine on very infected machines. It is the first tool I use (in safe mode) on system that otherwise seem hopeless. It has worked well very often.

Like any other spyware removing tools, it can ruin an OS. But when it happens, it's usually because the game was already over before it started.
 
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