Recover from Cryptolock virus
how best to recover from the cryptolock virus? Also the "firefox.exe" file was lost during the virus cleaning. The rest of the dir tree under "Programs files/Mozilla Firefox" dir is intact. Of course all standard file types that this virus goes after are encrypted under "My Documents" dir tree. Most files are there but others are encrypted. All of this happen on a windows XP home 32-bit PC.
Firefox was the default web access program, so many other programs that try to access the web through Firefox crash or do not run right. There are a number of add ons to Firefox (such as epub, and other readers, PDF, translators, download manager, etc.). Some of the these have files that where encrypted.
Chosen solution
Do to the non-response I got from this forum, I had to take solving this in my own hands and here is the results.
First I made a backup all of the dir sets that Firefox uses under "Programs" and "Documents and Settings". This was a precaution against losing some file that sill maybe needed, such as the bookmarks and other personalization data. Being there was no help from this forum on what to do, I copied everything. Then down loaded the latest version (29 in this case) of the installer on a different computer and put it on a USB drive to move to the computer under repair. MS Internet Explorer was never setup or used (although the updates where installed) on the repair computer. I did not want to go through time to see if IE is working, it is not the point here. I then moved the installer file to a temp dir on the repair computer, then ran it. It installed all of Firefox and as expected had some issues with the add-ons. Going through the add-ons one at a time, most just needed a update download and where fine, the Microsoft .Net need to be removed/uninstalled and reinstalled to get it working. Then I went back through the dir sets and removed all of the encrypted files that where left behind, they can't be used anyway. The backup files where not needed and I will be deleting them soon. At this time all is well. See it wasn't that hard to explain.
And to Philipp, Yes I will be moving to a newer OS in the near future. But I will be doing that at my own time of choice and need to run the two computers in parallel as I transfer data and programs.
One should never be in a hurry to spend money.
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hello, it's probably best to start clean and update to an operating system which is still supported and receives security updates...
I'm sure that a new computer and OS will solve any problem. This sounds like the stock answer to any question that takes more than two sentences to answer. That is not what I asked. In this case the word "recover" is to mean; to use a process/software to get back to a preexisting state with the existing OS, apps and hardware. Not to buy new, install new OS, add the apps, transfer/configure/load the personalization data for the apps, just to get back to the preexisting state before the virus.
I'm assuming that you will know what file types and dir tree sets that the Cryptolock virus goes after. You will know than what files of Firefox and it's addons where effected. If you do not, don't guess for me, I do that quite well on my own.
So how about a new question: If I load Firefox, 29, over the existing version will it keep all of the uninfected personalization data (bookmarks, epub and such) and I will have to redo the addons that I had? Or
If I have to uninstall Firefox, before loading version 29, how do I keep the uninfected personalization data? Keep in mind that Firefox is not running (if it was running, we would not be talking) and gets the following error: "The procedure entry point ?@@YAXXZ could not be located in the dynamic link library mozglue.dll."
I did check and file "mozglue.dll" is in the "Program Files\Mozlla Firefox" location and was unaltered.
Chosen Solution
Do to the non-response I got from this forum, I had to take solving this in my own hands and here is the results.
First I made a backup all of the dir sets that Firefox uses under "Programs" and "Documents and Settings". This was a precaution against losing some file that sill maybe needed, such as the bookmarks and other personalization data. Being there was no help from this forum on what to do, I copied everything. Then down loaded the latest version (29 in this case) of the installer on a different computer and put it on a USB drive to move to the computer under repair. MS Internet Explorer was never setup or used (although the updates where installed) on the repair computer. I did not want to go through time to see if IE is working, it is not the point here. I then moved the installer file to a temp dir on the repair computer, then ran it. It installed all of Firefox and as expected had some issues with the add-ons. Going through the add-ons one at a time, most just needed a update download and where fine, the Microsoft .Net need to be removed/uninstalled and reinstalled to get it working. Then I went back through the dir sets and removed all of the encrypted files that where left behind, they can't be used anyway. The backup files where not needed and I will be deleting them soon. At this time all is well. See it wasn't that hard to explain.
And to Philipp, Yes I will be moving to a newer OS in the near future. But I will be doing that at my own time of choice and need to run the two computers in parallel as I transfer data and programs.
One should never be in a hurry to spend money.