A virus for not actually doing anything? lol ok then...

Well this is a first for me, somehow I got a bunch of viruses (possibly adware?) from doing my normal (and yes legal =P) browsing habits. The system froze up, to which I promptly restarted because of how weird it was acting, then I got the following symptoms I've changed the list as I discover more:

1. The user account was temporarily damaged, although it did repair itself with a backup file, the shortcut to my documents in my computer is gone, however the contents are unharmed, almost like it's trying to scare me into thinking I lost everything?

2. The folder settings are locked to prevent you from seeing hidden files, even if you change the setting it changes back.

3. All the system restore points are gone, a classic virus footprint if I ever saw one.

4. it interferes with any attempts to scan for viruses for example yahoo antispy only returns tracking cookies and the scan took 5 seconds... suspicious much?

5. it's blocked access to microsoft.com and all the common antivirus websites.

I've been considering doing the easy thing of a wipe of the system anyway since it's had issues running 3D games for a while now and it's overdue for one, but is this the kind of virus that would still be around if I did that?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

No Windows virus can survive a repartition + reformat operation.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Is that so? I'll be sure to stop listening to my cousins silly rumors from now on that some can.

I'll backup the few odd things that I haven't already and do that then, I just thought I'd share the symptoms in case anyone else has had them or do in the future.

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Oh, some viruses certainly can (Boot Sector viruses). But they're not really prevalent these days, and they're certainly not as sophisticated as the infection you described, plus I strongly doubt they can even work in a Windows environment. The vast majority of viruses should go away if you wipe the hard disk clean. If you're really paranoid, then here's how to get rid of them.

You may have gotten infected via drive-by download or trojan horse. It is possible that the virus originally came from a flash disk or a different partition/hard disk. To be sure, don't open anything there (and especially make sure you disable Autorun) before doing a comprehensive scan with your favorite antivirus program.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Well if you're worried go download Derik's Boot & Nuke and write zeroes across your harddrive.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Doesn't doing that take like 12 hours?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Depends. But if you're really that worried I suppose it's worth it. =I

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Write zeros across the drive? Thats the same kind of software you use to delete all trace of deleted data on an old instal right? Reason I ask is I have another laptop I need to do that to.

Edit: hit a snag on the reinstal, something to do with this error "the file nvrd32.sys cannot be found" my first thought was it was the virus again, but apparently it's the fact it uses NVidia graphics. Trying to find a solution right now x.x

Edit2: wiped the drive first rather then doing the instal over it, everythings fine now... except the webcam installer doesn't work but webcams are overated anyway xP

Additional Spam:
Happy New Year to all! Sorry for the double post, but I have one final problem. After all my efforts of reinstalling everything and getting it all up and running I still have 2 of the most worrying symptoms:

2. The folder settings are locked to prevent you from seeing hidden files, even if you change the setting it changes back.

5. it's blocked access to microsoft.com and all the common antivirus websites.

How the hell these routines have survived I'm not sure, I've checked my usbs and there seems to be nothing wrong, in fact if there was surely it would have infected both my systems by now.

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