Thread: Desktop settings dissapeared + virus

Hey, i'm here for 2 things.

First of all, my the stupid idiot, downloaded a virus and run it... by accident though, i didnt know it was a virus. well, this virus absolutly wrecked my laptop, it even wrecked safe mode, it was the most worst virus i have ever seen, i managed to get my pictures back, through cmd. cuz i know the commands.
so the i decided to reboot...
after i rebooted [off the cd] my laptop was awesome, really fast just the usual, nothing wrong...
but i redownloaded some software, like MagicISO, microsoft office, the usual stuff..
but they are clean, because i scanned them with mcafee and stuff, also, i had them before for a long time. and i know microsoft wouldn't put viruses in office, thats dumb lol.
well anyway.
i was on msn talking to mates and browsing the net, as i always do.
then i suddenly had a box come up saying "antivirus XP download licence aggreement" and the only thing i could click was "agree and install" BUT i didn't click it, because it looks extremly dodgy.
i then went to tskmgr and got the process, and terminated it. a few minutes later i relise my desktop background changed, to something like "scan your computer for viruses" an stuff like that, non of it was clickable, non of it was linked or nothing.
so now, when i goto properties, the desktop tab has dissapeared, i have done scans with mcafee, and ended up getting rid of it. but theres still something wrong, i found out that when i search on google, and click a link, i get a new tab appear with this website showing;
http://clearask.com/search/?q=lol
the 'lol' is what i searched on google, the only way i can get onto websites is by copying and pasting the URL to the address bar.
oh, and when i was typing that, i got a shutdown message, whatever the virus is, it just tryed to shutdown my computer with the cmd 'shutdown -s -t 60' but i stopped it.
This happens with IE and firefox. its really bothering me now, i have no idea what to do, i know this is a long post, but i like to give you the full details so you get a better understanding.

The thing i have done so far is, i have run in safe mode, done a mcafee scan, and a norton scan, and mcafee found about 17 things, but it still made no change.

so my basic problems are;
1. i got an unknown virus, i will try to find a name or something for you.
2. i cant get my desktop settings up.
3. i cant click a link on google or any search engine.

sorry for the amount of writing, least it will give you something to do lol

Thanks
Mattio

EDIT : Fixed the desktop through regedit, forget that part, just everything else plz
thnx
ANOTHER EDIT : erm, its fixed :S i dunno how the hell but its fixed, i can now search on google & everything properly. but i am still conerned, this could still be on my pc, well, it should be as i havent done any scans or nothing.
unless it was just the regedit part, i changed them both to 0 to make my screen saver and desktop tab come back up, thats the only thing that i changed. and now i can search properly.
this is strange lol.

I'd download and update two programs.
Malwarebytes' antimalware; http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Superantispyware; http://www.superantispyware.com/ .

Run both in safemode. (Go and watch a film or something..lol.)

After rebooting from running both progs., I'd also scan in normal mode.
Both good antimalware programs and good to have onboard.

Another little suggestion for the future

offbyone is a very small and basic Web Browser that can be installed and ran from a flash drive.

You may never need it but in an instant like this ... it allows you to google for answers and probably solve the problem.

Also quite handy to carry with you ... your own personal browser that will not leave a history on a friens or works computer.

http://offbyone.com/offbyone/

Thanks for both of your comments.
so far i have found out that it is a svchost.exe problem, i found that there were many copies of this, and processes, well, i know the real one is in the system32 folder, but i found 1 in the i386 folder, and 1 in the drivers folder, so i deleted them, but they kept reapearing. so i got spybot search and destry, 1 scan from that, and it seemed to have found them, and deleted them, and it also found the problem with the desktop, it was just a picture which automatically run as background, dunno how that worked.
anyway. i thought i got rid of this virus, no popups and stuff, then suddenly, stuff started coming back up, like when i search, i am getting the popups again, so i have to keep copying and pasting the URL again
so annoying.
now, heres the major problem, its got worse, i dunno if its the virus, or a fault, but i keep getting the blue death screen, whatever they call it and it appears from either instantly on startup, just as i see the desktop, or about 10-15 minutes after i have my laptop running.
i managed to install service pack 3 from my memory stick, took about 3 attempts then after about 20 minutes or so, it went off...blue screen

this is extremly annoying, i have searched on google, but each time the blue screen has different errors, all i remember was the last blue screen said "PANIC_STACK_SWITCH" which is something to do with kernal overrun, or something, i don't even know what that is. but they said a lot of stuff.

erm, i have no idea what to do at the moment, i have run 3 different scanning programs [mcafee, norton, spybot] i have done a chkdsk, i went on advanced and done some random disk scans from the reboot disk. didnt do anything.
i am just stuck, this is the part i have gave up. i am at the point of rebooting to factory settings AGAIN which is extremly annoying because i have to instal my games again, office, antiviruses. argh !
thinking about it makes me wanna throw it on the fire lmao.

fabler -thanks for those sites, i may try those programs as i have no alternitive at the moment, but i have a feeling this isnt a virus.
ferret -its ok, i know how to make portables like firefox & stuff, but thanks for that info m8.