Malware problem

[kafka]

This afternoon I started to get warnings from Windows that msa.exe wasn't working and that Windows would look for a solution. I had no knowledge of this program and when I googled "msa.exe" I learned that it was malware. I then downloaded Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and scanned my computer. Malwarebytes advised me that it had found a number of instances of malware, which it then removed. None of the items it found contained any reference to msa.exe and I therefore don't know whether it has been removed.

The symptoms I still have are that Windows Defender won't turn on and that Windows reports problems running Advanced System Care, Glary Utilities and similar programs (i.e. they all close down soon after I open them).

Do I need to re-format my hard drive or is there a less dramatic solution?

I tried to restore my system to an earlier state but after going through the motions (re-booting, etc.) I was informed that the restore had failed. This is not new as I have never been able to successfully restore the system.

[evilfantasy]

Start here http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/topic,46313.0.html

Post the 3 logs when complete,

[kafka]

I was eventually able to restore my system to a previous state by starting in Safe Mode. After doing this I was able to run the programs which hadn't worked before and was also able to turn Windows Defender on. I then ran Spybot Search and Destroy and deleted all the malware it found. Before I did all this I couldn't open any links in Google, which I can now do.

It seems that I have gotten rid of msa.exe.

[evilfantasy]

MSA.exe is part of the rouge software called MS Antivirus. Some variations have rootkit components which Spybot alone usually can not handle. We should make sure that it is all actually gone. If not it could come back worse than before.


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