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Warning
having to format hard drive
I'm having a problem on one of my pcs, there appears to be a virus that's hijacked all the exe's and keeps trying to get me to buy an antivirus prog

programmci
Programmci.com is one of the multiple websites that help cyber criminals sell their scam program

called Antivirus Scan. Programmci.com hijacks your browsers and keep redirecting you to the

Antivirus Scan purchase site and is prompting you to buy a software. Then you will constantly

rerouted to Programmci.com due to the changes made to your computer and Internet settings.

Programmci.com will keep bombard your desktop screen interrupting your activity. What is more,

longer Programmci.com stays on your computer more infections can sneak inside. So you should take

this issue serious and remove Programmci.com hijacker from your PC.

http://www.remove-virus.net/programmci-com/

Why format - assuming you dont take regular image backups of your system (if you do, just restore your most recent image) - in 99.9% of cases, the computer can be cleaned of malware, quite esily in most cases. Sometimes it takes longer to clean than it does to format, but unless you have zero data on there you want to keep, then even this does not really make sense.

Some tools for you to help you today and in the future:

- www.malwarebytes.org - Malwarebytes
- www.safer-networking.org/en - Spybot Search & Destroy
- http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis - Hijackthis - a sensitive programme though, so if you are unsure about removing anything, post the results on wiki
- www.lavasoft.de - Ad-Aware

And you should have a good internet security package that will help you avoid these type of things in the first place, and help you rid your machine of them when you do become a victim, dont bother with any of this "free" shite, you can't really put a price on internet security, so spend a few quid a year (last year F-Secure was available OEM for £7ish per year and Kaspersky can work out as cheap as £6 per PC per year) and get something decent. Here is some good-uns (that dont use 90% of your system resources either, like crap such as McAffee does):

- www.eset.com - ESET Smart Security
- www.kaspersky.com - Kaspersky Internet Security
- www.f-secure.com - F-Secure Internet Security

I had the same problem.

As matt says use malwarebytes.

Also do a full scan with www.avira.com antivirus.

I've had this one myself. The solution is actually quite easy. Reboot your PC in Safe Mode (press key F8 repeatedly upon restarting).

You will be given the option to run System Restore. Do this and it will solve the problem. Then install and run the sort of software which Matt recommends. I personally like Avast Antivirus (free edition).

Afraid you're right Matt - been a bit of a scrooge as regards hard drive security - this has been a wakeup call.
Was using Microsoft Security essentials and also Virgin Media security.
I will look at getting what you have mentioned
I did the restore (altho didn't add any of suggestions)and was ok for a few days but it came back today, that's why I'm formatting

I had the same problem a few days ago, I restored my laptop, Now formating the Laptop - it's the only way to sort it !