My laptop files and start menu icons been deleted!Help Please.I never downloaded nothing?

[Life Questions]

I was on twitter and facebook then 50 warning messages popped up on my screen saying there was a problem with my laptop and another window popped up onto my screen scanning my laptop and it showed a list of things saying Dangerous or Critical

[Andy L.]

That was a computer virus that caused everything to be hidden.
It is a nasty one. If you can't anti-virus scan it, you may be able to select all the folders and un-hide them in properties, but you need serious antivirus.
When you visit certain web sites and open attachments, you are downloading.

[Laurence I]

its all malware.

go get malwarebytes you need it.

the chances are they are all still there, they just got their HIDDEN attribute set.

clean the pc with MWB

[Chris G]

Well, you've clicked on something you shouldn't have, and you're probably running with administrator privileges, so whatever malware you clicked on has successfully installed.  You'll need to clean it up, and it's going to take some time and effort, I'm sorry to say.

Download, install, update and do a full scan with either SUPERAntiSpyware (SAS) or MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) (or both, even -- but one at a time), and let them remove whatever they find.  Make sure you turn off System Restore before you do this.  You'll most likely need use Safe Mode, and you may need to download them on another computer if your internet access is compromised.  You may also need to run rkill to kill the malware process, and maybe rename the SAS and Malwarebytes executables' file names as well.

SAS download:  http://downloads.superantispyware.com/do...pyware.exe
MBAM download:  http://majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php?id...666f809b26
Rkill download:  http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download...irus/rkill
 
There are excellent tutorials on this at Bleeping Computers:

SAS tutorial:  http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-re...e-tutorial
MBAM tutorial:  http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-re...e-tutorial
Rkill tutorial:  http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-re...rial#rkill
   

Once it's cleaned up, install a good hosts file to help block unwanted popups, parasites, adware and spyware.  You can read about, download and install an excellent one from http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm   This hosts file blocks hundreds of known malicious URLs.  I've been using one from this website for several years now and rarely get popups and annoying ads.  Revisit the page every couple of months as it is updated from time to time with new sites.
 

Also, never use an administrator account for day-to-day use.  Always use a Standard or Limited account.  This will limit the amount of damage these things can do, and prevent them from installing by themselves.
 

[Colinc]

You have spyware, you carelessly clicked a link. Start in safe mode with networking on a wired connection. Download the free scanner from http://malwarebytes.org and run the full scan. After it offers the fix all sleeted items option and you use it, let the machine restart and go to safe mode with command prompt. Type cd \ and enter. Then type attrib -H * /S and enter. This will take a long time and will report errors that it can not change system files. This is good as it protects the system. Your files are not gone they are just hidden and this will make them visible again.