Stubborn malware

The wife clicked some "antivirus warning" she shouldn't have. Now the Google search points to various strange sites. And the system boots up with the firewall inactive.

Here are the characteristics of the now-infected computer system (Windows XP, SP3). All of the following were also tried in "safe" mode:

- Avast antivirus was previously installed and had the latest update, but a lengthy Thorough scan of the system did not indicate any problems.

- AVG was already installed, but my attempt to perform an update got blocked.

- Downloaded and tried to run Smitfraudfix.exe, but could not because of error message "has encountered a problem".

- Downloaded and tried to install superantispyware, but could not because of error message "has encountered a problem".

- Downloaded and successfully installed malwarebytes and its update, but the program would not launch (double click on icon and nothing happens).

- Downloaded and successfully installed SpybotSD, but the program would not launch (double click on icon and nothing happens).

- Downloaded hijackthis, but when I doubleclicked on the icon to install it, nothing happened and program was not installed.

- Various potentially useful websites are blocked, like Microsoft Update for example. I am entering this note from another system.

Please help. I'm stuck. If only I could get one or two of the antivirus programs running, I might at least have a chance starting to eliminate the problems. Thanks in advance for anything you might be able to suggest.

Moved from security to malware removal

Probably the tdss rootkit.

1. Please download The Avenger by Swandog46 to your Desktop
Link: HERE.

• Click on Avenger.zip to open the file
  
• Extract avenger.exe to your desktop
  

2. Now, start The Avenger program by clicking on its icon on your desktop.

• Leave the ticked box "Scan for rootkit" ticked.
  
• Then tick "Disable any rootkits found"
  
• Now click on the Execute to begin execution of the script.
  
• Answer "Yes" twice when prompted.
  
  The Avenger will automatically do the following:
  
  
• It will Restart your computer.
  
• On reboot, it will briefly open a black command window on your desktop, this is normal.
  
• After the restart, it creates a log file that should open with the results of Avenger’s actions. This log file will be located at C:\avenger.txt
  
• The Avenger will also have backed up all the files, etc., that you asked it to delete, and will have zipped them and moved the zip archives to C:\avenger\backup.zip.
  

5. Please copy/paste the content of c:\avenger.txt into your reply.

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