My PC was affected by slow performance and had repeated attempts to install 2008 System Antivirus (SAV)!

I had 2007 Norten Internet Security (NIS) for protection but it had not protected me from 2008 SAV.

I googled “2008 System Antivirus” and read how the PCs were affected. It was clear by reading other people’s post that 2008 SAV affected PC’s differently.

I didn’t want to take the manual approach of deleting / editing values in the registry. I didn’t want to buy anything.

My approach was to search on “SAV”. I found a folder “SAV” in Programs Files (I’m not sure of the exact file name) and deleted it there and in the recycle bin. I now was able to use my PC, but I stilled needed to run antivirus scans.

I the googled for the free “windows live OneCare safety scanner” and ran the Protection antivirus scans and it deleted some 2008 SAV virus plus other viruses.

Since I had been using 2007 NIS, I had at one point received an offer from Symantec to upgrade to 2009 NIS for free. I had deleted the offer from the system tray in the taskbar. I called Symantec and asked them to re-send the offer. The Tech took control of my PC and installed 2009 NIS free of charge. I ran 2009 NIS antivirus scan and deleted some more viruses. 2009 NIS performs well and checks for updates frequently.

I ran “windows live OneCare safety scanner” Full Service Scan which includes the Tune Up.

My PC was virus free at this point, but my Internet Explorer (IE) was damaged. The add on’s were damaged and every time I used IE I got an error message. I could not get rid of the error message so what I did was create a new user account and copy my files from the old user account to the new user account (which took about 2 hours). I then deleted the old user account (which took about 30 minutes) and my PC was whole again. I noticed when I did a defrag on the device the first 33 MB where the old user account was in the beginning of the drive is no longer there. Then the new user account begins.