AdwCleaner nightmare - black screen after login...

[Sabine_farm]

I hope someone here can help me!

I installed Malwarebytes and AdwCleaner on a laptop last night. Malwarebytes scan was great and cleaned up the system. Then I used AdwCleaner and managed to accidentally 'clean' over 7 GB of files from WINSXS. I thought I was only cleaning one file, but after it started I noticed the other tabs with multiple files in there. I tried to stop it, but couldn't so I shut down. Now I have a black screen after login (in all safe modes). I can reach task manager and through browsing I have found AdwCleaner under the C drive with the quarantined files in it.

I copied the quarantine folder to my desktop and thought I could remove the .vir extensions and then move the files back into the WINSXS folder. I can't select more than one file at a time while browsing in task manager - there are thousands of them - is there a way of moving them back where they belong? Task manager can't find explorer.exe. And I can't open any programs as I get an error COMCTL32.dll is missing.

Here is what I've tried so far:

System recovery options (start up repair and system restore - neither work)

Booting from a flash drive with windows defender offline.

SFC /SCANNOW

CHKDSK

If only I could undo AdwCleaner I think it would be back to normal.

Please help - this is my daughter's computer with her homework etc on it :-(

Windows 7 Home Premium

Lenovo Ideapad Z565

Thank you

[Naathim]

Hi. I will try to help, but not here. Please start a new topic in this section and we shall see what can be done:

https://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?/forum/7-malware-removal-help/

[daledoc1]

Hello and :

 

EDIT: OOPS! I didn't notice that you were posting at the same time, @Naathim.

 

We can't work on malware diagnostics and removal in this sub-section of the forum.

So, for expert assistance, I suggest that you please follow the advice in this pinned topic: Available Assistance For Possibly Infected Computers.
It explains the options for free, expert help >>AND<< the preliminary steps to take to expedite the process.

>>If the computer is so crippled that you cannot run the requested preliminary scanners, please just start a new topic in the malware removal section anyway, explaining the situation.
A malware analyst will have additional tools to help to get you cleaned up and repaired.

Until you get an expert helper to work with you, I would suggest NOT doing any additional "self-medication" -- it could cause more damage and hamper the recovery.

Thanks,

[Naathim]

No worries.

 

Let's focus on discovering what happened there