Malware and disabled security center

My daughter's computer (HP running WinXP Home SP2) has the same problem as
previously posted by another user. My daughter(who says she knew better)
clicked on a suspicious link in an AIM message she received, AIM went crazy,
and now Windows Security's firewall is disabled and auto update turned off,
with the ability to turn the firewall back on denied because of a group
control issue. The fix suggested by Bruce Chambers to the other poster to go
into group policy editor (start-run-gpedit.msc) would not work for me,
windows said it could not find it. McAfee found no virus, Ad-Aware found no
malware, but Spybot found 6 entries that all relate to windows security
center--it says it fixes them but the firewall problem remains and when I run
Spybot again it finds the same 6 entries. They are all registry changes,
they read as follows:

WindowsSecurityCenter.AntiVirusDisableNotify
settings
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security
Center\AntiVirusDisableNotify!=dword:0

WindowsSecurityCenter.AntiVirusOverride
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security
Center\AntiVirusOverride!=dword:0

WindowsSecurityCenter.FirewallDisableNotify
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security
Center\FirewallDisableNotify!=dword:0

WindowsSecurityCenter.SP2Update
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Wondows\WindowsUpdate\DoNotAllowxps2!=dword:0

WindowsSecurityCenter.UpdateDisableNotiry
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security
Center\UpdayesDisableNotify!=dword:0

Any help would be appreciated, as I just spent many hours getting rid of the
downloader-AWX Trojan that McAfee found but could not remove, and now this.

Signed,
A weary not-really-computer-savvy Mom who has better things to do. LOL

AZK <AZK RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>My daughter's computer (HP running WinXP Home SP2) has the same problem as
>previously posted by another user. My daughter(who says she knew better)
>clicked on a suspicious link in an AIM message she received, AIM went crazy,
>and now Windows Security's firewall is disabled and auto update turned off,
>with the ability to turn the firewall back on denied because of a group
>control issue. The fix suggested by Bruce Chambers to the other poster to go
>into group policy editor (start-run-gpedit.msc) would not work for me,
>windows said it could not find it. McAfee found no virus, Ad-Aware found no
>malware, but Spybot found 6 entries that all relate to windows security
>center--it says it fixes them but the firewall problem remains and when I run
>Spybot again it finds the same 6 entries. They are all registry changes,
>they read as follows:
>

Try booting the computer into "Safe Mode with Networking" (so as to
minimize the interference by the Malware if possible) and then go to
one of the following free online scanner sites and see if they can
clean up the machine:
Bit Defender http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html
Trend Micro http://housecall.trendmicro.com
Kaspersky Online Scanner http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner
Panda ActiveScan http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan
WindowSecurity.com TrojanScan http://windowssecurity.com/trojanscan
Webroot http://www.webroot.com/

To boot the computer into "Safe Mode with Networking" turn it on and
start tapping the F8 key rapidly just as soon as the first information
of any kind shows on the screen. Keep tapping until the Windows XP
Startup menu appears and choose "Safe Mode with Networking" from the
menu.

Note: If the initial Windows XP startup "splash screen" shows instead
of the startup menu you have missed it and will have to restart and
try again. Either you did not start tapping the key soon enough
and/or you were tapping too slowly.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."