Everything I Open Asks to 'Run As'

[Devo]

Hello everyone. I recently had a friend use my computer and apparently a virus was installed. I was using AVG which obviously did not do enough to protect me, but I guess you get what you paid for (which was nothing).

Anyways, the problem I have now is that whenever I open a .exe (for example, the Mozilla browser), it says:

Also, when I run certain applications such as my Control Panel, it says I have insufficient privileges which appears for a brief second before disappearing and opening what I wanted it to.

And finally, one thing I have noticed is my ctrl + c / ctrl + v (copy and paste function) seems to no longer work.

Here are my comp specs:

Acer Aspire 5630

Windows XP Pro SP3

2.00GB Ram

140GB Hard Drive

nVidia GeForce 7300

Thanks in advance, and here are my comp specs.

[AlanHo]

Use system restore to go back to a time before your friend made the change

[andsome]

If the above doesn't put things right, it is a salutary lesson on the wisdom of keeping a mirror image on a plug in hard drive, using a program like Acronis. In the eventuality that you cannot put things right, and have to reinstall windows, I would suggest that you look into this. Best of luck.

[Devo]

In my long time of using the Windows operating system, I have time and time again found the System Restore feature which rolls back your computer to a previous date, to be ineffective. It seems as though the people who code viruses these days know all too well about this feature and its functions, and easily program their viruses to copy themselves to folders that this function will not effect, so that they stay in tact even after the roll back.

I guess my worst fears have been actualized, a system reformat. However, locating that disc will be very hard/ not possible. That is why I was looking for information on how to stop my computer from having that dialogue box appear upon each application's execution.

Thanks again, I appreciate it.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

You need to remove the malware first, then use System Restore. That should restore your settings to the state it was before the malware changed it.

System Restore by itself will not remove any malware!