Recently when using the computer I noticed that Microsoft has downloaded its new “Spyware Guard 2008” software onto the computer. This software immediately detected 28 viruses on the computer which AVG Free has not been able to detect. Additionally, it will only let me delete the viruses should I pay $50 to purchase the full product (which I think is absurd). These viruses appear to be stopping me from updating AVG Free so I might have to pay the money. Do you have any advice?

Whenever a piece of software offers to scan your computer for free, but then insists that you pay money to “unlock” all features and remove any detected threats, this should immediately ring alarm bells as potentially dodgy software. In the case of Spyware Guard 2008 which has been installed on your computer, this software is not made by Microsoft and has nothing to do with Microsoft. This is a fairly easy mistake to make, as questionable software disguises itself to look legitimate. It is likely that this software was installed on your computer when you downloaded and attempted to install some other piece of software which seemed legitimate, but was actually just a vehicle to deliver Spyware Guard 2008 as its payload.

Doing some research on Spyware Guard 2008 has shown this is a variant of the MS Antivirus “scareware rogue anti-virus” software which claims to find viruses on your computer and then attempts to get the user to purchase the full version of the software in order to remove the bogus viruses. Everything about this piece of software is designed to look legitimate, from the fake scan through to fake error messages – all designed to scare the unsuspecting user into thinking there is a problem with the computer and that they need to purchase the software.

Depending on the variant of the software on your computer, it could be relatively benign (i.e. just warning you that you need to purchase the software to remove the threats) or more harmful (such as producing regular messages on the screen, preventing you from using the computer normally, or even blocking other antivirus software packages from updating or disabling them all-together). More information on this threat can be found at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Antivirus .

Returning to your question, you obviously do not need to purchase this software as it is a complete fraud. So we need to consider how to remove Spyware Guard 2008 from the computer. It seems that you have a more harmful variant of the threat, as it is preventing AVG Free from updating. Most likely, it will also prevent other malware removal utilities from running. My view is that once your computer has been infected to this degree, you can never trust the computer again (as, even if you remove the malware from your computer, you can never be certain that it has been fully removed). Therefore, my suggestion would be to backup all important data, documents, email, etc. that you wish to keep and then reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows from scratch. While this may seem like a rather radical approach, it is the only way to ensure that this menacing malware has been removed from your computer for good.