Hey all!

New user here. Let me preface by saying that I know absolutely nothing about CNC, lasers, or modeling software necessary to make the lasers do their magic. (I just know technology as an IT administrator! )

My father in law approached me regarding building / purchasing a computer for configuration and use for his new laser and router that he had purchased from some form of a distributor or another from China. I know nothing about the laser itself (or the router for that matter), nor the company that he bought it from, nor the distributor that he got it through. Now, with my lack of knowledge explained, let me get into the meat of the issue I've run into.

When he received his equipment, he received a PCI card to install for his router, and two sets of CDs. Two for his router, and two for his laser. For the purpose of this thread (and discussion forum), I will focus only on the laser that he purchased, and not say anything regarding his router purchase. (I haven't even gotten to that part of the install yet!)

With his laser purchase, he received two CDs (as stated), and a USB dongle for security and license control of the LaserCut 5.3 software that he received. All seems well and good, so far. However, when looking at the two CDs he received, it was clear that they were not professional, company-made CDs. Rather, they were some off-brand blank media that someone bought, and then burned the data onto the CD. I figured that this may not be a big deal, since he did purchase the laser from China, and it goes without saying that purchasing from China for much cheaper does provide the possibility of much less product support and software quality.

So, I popped the first CD into the computer to see what was on it. It had a few files on it - PDFs and .DOCs, with instructions on how to use the laser. Not quite what I was looking for. Moving on.... I then popped the second CD into the computer. This time, I noticed what appeared to be the Setup / Install for LaserCut 5.3. Horray! So I clicked on the Setup.exe, and BAM! Instant virus alert from Sophos AV. Yikes!

I then took the CD to my main desktop, and scanned it with AVG. Once again, the Setup.exe came back as a positive virus match. Crap... So I uploaded the file to virusscan.jotti.org for an analysis. Sure enough, 15 of the 19 scans they did on it from a variety of AVs returned back with some form of a Backdoor Trojan form or another.

I called my father-in-law to tell him what the issue was. He then relayed some scary information to me. He told me that he had previously called his distributor about installing the software on his laptop (he's not very technically inclined, and wasn't sure how to install the software). Apparently, his distributor walked him through the install process, and explicitly told him that he needed to disable his AV protection before installing the software! (Yikes again!) So he disabled the AV, installed the software, and he thought he was good to go....

So, now I'm stuck with an unprofessional software install disc that's loaded with a bad Trojan on it, and no way of installing the actual software. I don't know if it was from the company his distributor got it from, or if his distributor maliciously injected the virus, or where it came about. And to make matters worse, as stated above, I know absolutely nothing about CNC, nor Lasers, nor LaserCut!

I did some digging about the software, and found that a lot of you on here user LaserCut, and that it's supposed to work seamlessly with the laser that he bought. However, I have no idea where to get the software, or who makes it, or if you can even get it as a stand-alone product. I did some searching, and found reference to it at two sites: alibaba.com, and leetro.com. Alibaba.com seems to have it, but you can't buy it. You must email / call them and inquire about purchasing the software. And with Leetro, you can't download the software, as it simply links to a request to send them an email requesting to buy the software.

So, now I'm stuck with a computer, software with a virus, and no direction to go. So I thought the next best bet would be to ask the experts here about it, and about what to do. It seems that this should be pretty easy, but without knowing anything about lasers or about LaserCut, and potentially being afraid of contacting his distributor, if it indeed was him who injected the virus, I'm kind of stuck and have hit a brick wall.

Sorry for the super long post, but any info and help you can give would be appreciated. Thanks!