My sympathies-—I feel for you.
My computer was captured 2 years ago by “Antivirus 2008” and before I knew it had disabled all. I tried everything including re install. Nothing worked. Cost? 200 dollars.
A few months ago another bad one - forgot the name - cost 200 dollars.
The tech told me that it was targeting certain websites - my computer got infected when I visited Michelle Malkin’s site.
Did you lose any data when the tech fixed it?
The best and practically only way to keep these things out of a Windows computer is to establish a “limited permission” login id separate from the rest of your logins, which by default have administrative permission. In effect, on windows systems, it’s all or none with permissions.
With a limited (or standard) login id, most programs work just fine, but your system files and the system portion of the registry can not be altered. As long as you surf the web from a limited/standard login, you’re mostly safe, and whatever might creep in is very easy to remove and can’t do any serious system damage.
The main exception to this technique is that it’s of limited use on older HP XP computers (and maybe compaq and newer HP computers too, for all I know), because HP screwed up the inheritance of permissions in the Windows and Program Files folder, giving all users the right to manipulate all files and folders in these two critical system folders.
A few months ago another bad one - forgot the name - cost 200 dollars.
Interesting. I've got a similar problem. How long did it take them to fix it? Did they do it at your house or did they take it to a repair shop?