Unfortunately, numerous virus attacks do not give a chance to an illiterate user who is curious about a “strawberry” or who has just visited an infected site. The scale of the epidemic has gained the spread of Windows blockers. These programs are mainly distributed through vulnerabilities of popular browsers or downloaded malware. The result, as a rule, appears at the next system boot - Windows unlock is required.
It looks like this: instead of the usual desktop, the system displays a beautiful window to the user on a full screen, where they need to put money on a specific number, supposedly the unlock code will be on the check, and in older versions of the malware it will send an SMS to a paid number. Often used and various tricks in order to lure a trusting user of his hard-earned. For example, for many users the text is displayed: "Your system is locked because an unlicensed copy of Windows is installed, please pay a fine for the next number ...".
Sometimes, attackers come up with something more searching. After all, everyone wants to have no shortage of money, and fraud, even such a small one, but on a scale of hundreds of thousands of PCs, allows you to quickly get it with the least risk of getting caught.
In fairness, it should be noted that many of these programs do have unlock codes, such as TrojanWinlock. The anti-virus laboratories DrWeb and Kaspersky have specialized services for finding unlock codes for a particular modification of malicious software, which anyone can use for free.
If you are one of those many users who have been the victim of scammers, in no case do not send SMS. Unlocking Windows can be done independently. In Windows 7, the easiest way is to use the system recovery function, called through the boot menu using the F8 key. The recovery mechanism is as follows: startup options will be brought back to normal by eliminating the malware. For a guaranteed effect, you should not use startup recovery, but system recovery, but first you should clean the boot sector with the fixboot and fixmbr commands.
There are other ways to unlock the system. In particular, the largest anti-virus laboratories Doctor Web and Kaspersky have released utilities to solve these problems. Let's see in more detail what they are.
It should be noted the ease with which specialized Windows unlocking programs are implemented. Kaspersky WindowsUnlocker is a program that comes with the original Kaspersky Rescue Disk, the distribution kit of which should be downloaded from the official site. This is a regular Linux-based live cd, about 200-300 megabytes in size.
Its only difference from standard Linux distributions of this kind is the presence of corporate identity and specialized scripts, one of which is Windows Unlocker, launched from the terminal by the corresponding program. Just type the name of the program in the terminal, look for the Windows installation and select the menu item "Unlock Windows". Previously, you can save copies of the boot sectors, but this option is more likely for professionals who often have to deal with this type of infection.
If this service did not help you, then it is quite possible to unlock Windows Dr Web. Just download the free Live CD product and run a scan. An alternative is to use the CureIT utility with the latest databases, which can be downloaded from the company's official ftp. But this is only if starting in safe mode with command line support is still available. In another way, unlocking Windows is done only with the help of a proprietary Live CD.