How to prevent viruses disabling your PROTECTION !

There are many viruses written out there today that are very smart indeed. Some poeple have alot of spare time on their hands.

Some viruses block antivirus sites by altering the hosts file. You can locate this file at C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc in XP. To fix it, double click and open the hosts file in notepad. Delete any line referring to an antivirus site. Or delete the whole file. Windows will recreate a fresh one automatically again.

Now browse to an online virus scanner to check your hard drive and remove the virus. I used Panda ActiveScan at http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/ActiveScan.htm (email reg required). It also requires active x to run so run it using internet explorer.

Keep your defences unblocked by changing the extension of any utilities executable file from .exe to .com. If a file blocked registry access, select start, run, type command, then press enter. Type ren c:\Windows\regedit.exe regeedt.com and press enter. Then type regedit to launch the registry editor.

You can further regain control of your PC by changing the system configuration utilities executables file from msconfig.exe to msconfig.com. In XP, this file is in the C:\windows\pchealth\healpctr\binaries folder. Right click and choose rename adding the .com file extension.