Hey there, I am running into a problem with a program called system security which is going crazy on a friends Gateway laptop running Vista. I am in college and I am pretty awesome a trouble shooting mac computer problems so I have become, unfortuantly, the go to guy for all of my friends system troubles.
This makes the second time that I have run into problems with system security. I am asked to help because this program starts shooting up security warnings left and right and claims the computer has ten different viruses on it. I am wondering is this a just a bad security program or is this computer really in that dire need of salvation

I consider myself a security software specialist and I can tell you, I never heard of such program. The simptoms you are describing are typical for fake antivirus programs also called rogue-malware. These are very difficult to delete.
First of all I would disable it's access to internet with your firewall. Second of all I would install Free ThreatFire which would most probably find out if this program uses malware tactics. you may also run hijack and send logs to special online community to analisys. If you need more anwsers visit my tech website for solution.
take care

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You have your own "special online community" right here at Daniweb. No need to be sent elsewhere.

Download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (http://www.majorgeeks.com/Malwarebyt...are_d5756.html) to your desktop.

* Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
* At the end, be sure to checkmark the Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, then click Finish.
* If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version.
* Download the update from here if you have problems.
* Once the program has loaded, select Perform full scan, then click Scan.
* When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
* Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
* When completed, a log will open in Notepad.
* Post the log back here.

The log can also be found here:
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Malwarebytes\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\Logs\log-date.txt
Or at C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\Logs\log-date.txt

Make sure that you restart the computer.

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Download HijackThis Executable from here. Save it to your desktop.
Start HJT & press the "Do a system scan and save a log file" button. When the scan is finished a window will pop up giving you the option of where to save it. Save it to desktop where it is easy to access. Open the log file and then go to the format Tab and make sure that wordwrap is unchecked. Copy the entire contents of the file & paste it into the body of your post. DO NOT FIX ANYTHING YET. Most of what is there is necessary for the running of your system.