Insufficient privileges to modify Superantispyware.exe

[Saintjay77]

Hi,

A friend of mine asked me to open a winrar file and sent me a link. He is a trusted source and it was a genuine email. I think who ever uploaded the file didnt realise that the place they were uploading too had been compromised. The link took me too Upload.com and just by going there I found myself being told that I had Viruses coming out of my ears by a program that looked very similar to AVG. I had Superantispyware installed which didnt manage to stop it and I also have AVG fully updated which also didnt manage to stop it. I didnt click on any links past the one in the email so figure thats the one that caused the problem.

Now in trying to get rid of the issue I ran full Virus Scan which found lots of problems and tried to clean them but failed. Ran a full SAS scan which found the usual cookies and a few other problems and did clean them. Updated AVG to version 9 and ran another full scan which found the problems from before and managed to clean them.

Thinking my problems were over I left it at that. But now I find that when I click on a link in google I get redirected to several different pages. None of which where I want to go. So I go to run SAS full scan again but cant open the program. Try to open it in the alternative mode which it does but fails to scan. I think a reinstall might work so download the latest SAS.exe and uninstall the previous version. Now I am at the point of the original subject and I get told that the Windows Installer doesnt have enough privileges to run the exe. I run the exe in safemode which gets denied. I try to run the online scan which gets some way through the registry before closing. What ever I have on my machine seems to be blocking everything SAS trys to do and hides pretty well from AVG too.

Anyone have any suggestions as it seems this one has SAS beat?

[Saintjay77]

Update from me is that I can now install SAS by way of telling it to install to a different directory. I have updated it and tried to run a full scan but at some point SA closes with no error or report with no indication of anything being found.

Now its installed again I am going to try and run it in safe mode and see if I get any more joy.

[Saintjay77]

Another update:

Tried to run the program in safemode but was told that there was insufficient privileges to open the SAS.exe. I reset the user rights on the SAS folder and ran the exe again. Ran full scan and it bombed out some way through the registry scan. Again no error or report or fix.

Rebooted to normal windows and the redirects take me to sites like bigdealfinder and threatfinder. Several clicks on the link will eventually get me to the correct site and then google appears to run OK.

I also noticed that Task Manager is unavailable when in normal windows. So I cant shut down any suspicious proccesses.

As anyone that might be able to help me is still asleep I am going to put my hard drive into my wifes laptop as a USB external drive and scan it from her (at pressent) working windows and SAS. If that doesnt work and still no suggestions on here it looks like I will be completly rebuilding windows on mine and if really unlucky on my wifes too.

If nothing else I hope someone else reads this and skips allot of time in trying to fix this issue by not bothering with the methods I have tried so far.

[Saintjay77]

Just want to say thanks for all the replys with suggestions and fix's. LOL.

I think I have cracked it now and thought I would let you know so if anyone else has the problem they know the way to fix it.

I took my hard drive out of my laptop and put it in a USB caddy. (Easy enough to get hold of and fairly cheap) Loaded up my wifes Laptop (Not as easy to get hold of and certainly not as cheap, wife or her latop) and made sure her SAS and AVG were current and fully updated. Plugged the caddy into her laptop then did a full scan of that drive from her machine. That found stuff which wouldnt be found while in my machine and removed the problems including a couple of Virus' which I guess were the cause of the whole problem.

Put the drive back into my Laptop and booted up. No more redirects but a problem which I dont think I mentioned before where the Task manager was unavailable was still there.

Regedit to enable that via a quick web search and thats all sorted too.

I re-ran all updates and re-ran all scans which found more problems and cleared them all.

Would have been nice if the SAS team could have looked into why there online scan was also bombing out as in my case it seemed as usless to use that as it was to use the version installed on my machine but I guess they will have other chances. Will far from stop me using SAS though as altimatly SAS and AVG were what fixed the issues so I am a happy bunny.

[Seth]

Hi Jay.

For future reference, SAS's Control Center has a "Repairs" tab which includes a Task Manager repair.

BTW- For stubborn infections, I usually slave the drive.

[Saintjay77]

Ah-ha,

Cheers for that. All seems OK now )