I might not do that this time but if I have to sort out anything quite as painful again I might suggest it to them. The only issue I might have with it is if things do go wrong with it because I haven't done much with linux.

Currently running Malwarebytes on their PC. Had to run the command prompt as administrator to stop Win7AS2012 from blocking it and could use that to run taskmanager to disable it. I seem to have removed the main issue but now when clicking on .exe files (unless they're run as admin) I get a dialog asking what program I want to use to open this file. hopefully Malwarebytes will fix that.

Ha, not for me they don't. Shame I'm only doing it for family.

And yes, when I said one more problem I meant the .exe problem. Thanks :)

Everything was going so well then I ran combofix which sorted out the other computer. After it had finished trying to run anything brought up a message saying "illegal operation on a registry key that has been marked for deletion"

Oh bums! I have no restart/shutdown button and couldn't get to the cmd prompt to shutdown from there. Luckily a logoff and connecting again with RDP seems to have sorted everything out. Phew!

It's in the current iteration of Ubuntu. I preferred StarOffice in the older distros to be honest, but then again I tend to use MS Office for all that guff anyway (dual boot).

I'm sure it's lovely.

Ack, I had to help my Dad remove one of those fake antivirus/antispyware programs a few months back from his office PC (he's a one man business renting a single office room). It was a feckin' nightmare. He's still running XP which is fine and dandy as he's got some ancient software that he doesn't want to risk on a newer operating system. In the end I used something called BartPE to kill it off. I used this a lot when I was doing my own "business" a few years back supporting comuters and networks in the local area and it's a life saver. Bit fiddly to get a good copy working but bloody handy too.

Not sure whether there's a version that'll work for Windows Vista/7 so it might be in the obolete bin a little bit these days, but perfect for the XP machines still hanging around.

Next time he kills his PC though, I'm going to tell him it's broken and he needs a new one. He's been saying he'll get a new PC for two years. Just worried about the funny little tools he uses...

This sounds like me and my father in law.

He fills his PC up with shit over the space of a year or 2 then I fix it. He's had variants of the XP Antispyware 2008 twice now. I've set Malwarebytes to run at startup but he still manages to get it.

Last time getting rid of of XP Antispyware 2008 did so much damage I ended up flattening the system and re-installing it.

I hate being family tech support :(