I have Vista SP2 on my desktop computer with Windows Defender. I managed somehow to contract the Alureon trojan, which Windows Defender detected and attempted to remove but gave me a message that I needed to download Windows Defender Offline to a bootable media, then boot off that media and let Windows Defender Offline scan and remove that trojan. I did all this, and Windows Defender Offline did not find any malware after a full scan. Nevertheless, when I reboot to Vista on the local hard drive, I immediately get a notification that the computer is unprotected and that I need to download Windows Defender Offline. So... did Windows Defender Offline simply fail to remove the trojan and my computer is trashed. Or does something need to be reset in Windows Defender or the registry. Or get additional anti-virus software (and if so, any recommendations?) Marty Martin J. Franek

I had the same issue and want to add info here so as to help others recover from this virus. On my computer, everything was set to hidden yet the computer booted. There is a program called "unhide" available at bleepingcomputer.com. Within windows explorer, tools folder options, SHOW ALL FILES AND FOLDERS to make things visible again. Run the unhide program to reset the properties of all the folders and restore visibility. DO NOT delete anything from the temp folders until you run the unhide. Important info is stored there by the virus that unhide needs to access. After running UNHIDE, create a MS Windows Defender Offline CD for your OS, boot to it and remove the virus. Now, your system will not boot!! The virus created a small partition and ran the boot structure through it and you will need to boot with a program like Active@, LiveBoot or some program with partitioning tools to remove the small partition or at least set the ACTIVE partition back to your primary drive. Reboot and you are back home in Windows.