Guild Wars 2

Representative Luis was trying to help me figure out why the GW2 client was crashing my computer every 15 minutes. He decided it was because my drivers were out of date. After uninstalling and reinstalling my drivers, it still didn’t work. Luis told me to go to http://treexy.com to install a program which would completely uninstall my drivers in a way that AMD CCC could not.

Upon downloading this program, I didn’t realize until it was too late that this program came with a nasty Bing toolbar virus. THERE IS NO “click here if you would like to install said toolbar”, you have no choice in the matter.

“Bing Virus is a new search hijacking malware that modifies Windows hosts file and hijacks Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers. In the event a user clicks on a Bing, MSN, Google or Yahoo search result link, they will be rerouted through various corrupt advertising related search websites. Bing Virus may load into the memory and can therefore not be removed by regular security programs. Bing Virus may damage important system files, registry, hardware, and compromise the security of your confidential data. "

I was able to remove the toolbar itself, but even after add/remove and killing the application in my browser, the search engine field at the top right of my browsers were LOCKED onto bing, I was therefor rendered incapable of using google unless I physically typed google.com into the address bar.

The ONLY way to remove this is via a reformat.

So this is a public service announcement.

Never ever download a third party program that ANet tech support recommends, if it gets to that point, save yourself some grief and just reformat.

Ouch and you probably just got Luis fired.

Spybot Search and Destroy (it’s free) is still the best anti-malware I found so far. Much better than Malwarebyte anyway, that one is almost useless. So the next time something like this happens to you give it a try.

Leto.5642:

Spybot Search and Destroy (it’s free) is still the best anti-malware I found so far. Much better than Malwarebyte anyway, that one is almost useless. So the next time something like this happens to you give it a try.

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I don’t think you understand the severity of this virus. Trust me, reformatting was my last option. I was trying to remove it all day.

lcizzle.8219:

Ouch and you probably just got Luis fired.

I wish I could say I feel sorry for Luis.

Not sure if OP is trolling or looking to blame an already infected machine on someone else..

Right, because it magically took over my computer some other way in between the time I installed the program and the time I went to my browser to check my email to get the rest of the instructions Luis gave me.

I installed the software, no Bing at all. You must have already had it and it was disabled or you checked the box to accept the install.

But do not blame Anet for mistake you made.

I’ve installed Driver Fusion a couple of times, no problems, and use it regularly.

You (OP) sound frustrated and I definitely understand that.

Like many free to download applications, it has the option of installing various third party software, but only if the radio buttons are checked to allow it (which they are by default). The installer/user must watch as they go through the steps during install, being aware to un-tick the boxes.

It is not the rep, the company, or Treexy’s fault if the user failed to notice those small, sneaky little radio buttons.

Just some advice from a long time ATI Radeon user….When updating AMD drivers for your Radeon card you should really follow these steps in order:

1) Download new CCC driver suite from “support.amd.com” . I like to place the files on desktop after download so I can easily see them to run after uninstall of current CCC and the drop in resolution to 800×600.

2) Download and install free program Driver Sweeper. After every uninstall of CCC using Windows, there is always some registry files that are missed. When you open DS, you will see a very minimal interface with some options on the left and a large window on the right with a list of all third party driver and suite data installed on your pc.

3) Uninstall current CCC using add/remove programs ( I usually chose custom as it is not necessary to remove hydragrid). DO NOT REBOOT YET, instead run Driver Sweeper and check the box in front of “ATI – Display” and hit analyze on lower portion. After it shows all the ATI associated files pick all of them and hit clean. Now you are completely free of all ATI info of old version of CCC.

4) Now you can reboot

5) after logging back into Windows, run the newly downloaded CCC version and go through install steps. Again, I choose custom so they can’t sneak extra trial crap software onto my pc.

6) You should have no problems with install, and don’t forget that there are typically two other files to install besides CCC that go with whichever version you are installing. They are Hydravision and Xcode.

If you get a crash during install, then you likely haven’t properly removed all previous versions of CCC and/or need to run Scandisk/Defragment on Windows.

Hope this helps!

“2) After every uninstall of CCC using Windows, there is always some registry files that are missed.”

I didn’t know this, and it explains so much. Thanks for the tip. ATI has been the bane of my existence, I would have gone nvidia if intel cpus weren’t such a colossal waste of money.

Also, best malware removal tool is Malwarebytes hands down (and it’s free : )). Multiple different software reviewers on Cnet, TomsHardware (others I can’t think of off the top of my head) have rated it the best for several years in a row now. Just google Malwarebytes and find the top search results will be it. Download, install and then Update!!!! prior to running it. There are three scan options, and I always recommend the Full scan (esp. if you have a known malware causing problems). It usually takes about an hour to an hour 1/2 to fully run. After it is finished, I want to say that it automatically removes all malware/viruses found. If it doesn’t it will most definitely list all issues found for you to select and then remove. I have used it for over 5 years and have never seen it miss anything.

I used to use Spybot and Adaware in the past along with a few other programs that I actually paid for. It seemed like I had to run at least three to catch any of the nastier programs out there, and even then some programs were able to hide. Malwarebytes allowed me to get rid of all the other junkier removal tools, and it is very easy to update it’s database/version using the update tab. Hope this helps, and if you already fixed your issue then maybe consider installing this for the future.

Thanks for the suggestions for anti virus and malware protection programs, I’m already loaded to the max on those. Majorgeek’s forums were really helpful for me in finding free, quality programs.

None of these programs recognized this one specific virus, I’m guessing it integrated itself so well that it was undetectable.

Also, avira is garbage IMO.

- I installed Driver Fusion on my test machine; it installed fine without any of the OP’s issues: no bing, no ask, hosts file is fine, MBAM scan is fine; Luis did not break your computer, you did
- ATI CCC has always been (and apparently still is) sloppy
- Spybot is ancient; it was great in its day but not so much now
- Everything is detectable
- Although I don’t currently use Avira, I’d hardly call it garbage. McAfee on the other hand…