Computer help!!

[Cassie 8]

Avast is amazing. It does its job (it caught a particularly nasty bug on one of our computers before it had the chance to do anything) and best of all it is free! We used other things (many of which have been mentioned in this thread) and they don't work nearly as well as Avast. We like it so much, we have both our computers on it, as well as my parent's, and our church's system. Works for us!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

From some of the posts here - it seems to me it might not be a bad idea to have a separate ID for O/T - as apparently what you say here might affect whether or not someone helps you on the immigration topics.

[Mirorgate 0]

go into network connections (its in control panel) and UNCLICK share files/printers.... talk about a hole in your system for anyone to walk into

Well, since I have a 4 PC / 2 Mac network running on a gigabit LAN with a Windows Server2003 domain controller here at home, I reckon I'll have to pass on that little tip. LOL

heh.. not all homes are running so many puters linked like that but my tip stands for the simple 1 or 2 compy home system (they rarely seet up for file sharing)

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

From some of the posts here - it seems to me it might not be a bad idea to have a separate ID for O/T - as apparently what you say here might affect whether or not someone helps you on the immigration topics.

I'll always help. I treat every thread separate.

[Veiled Princess 1]

I can't get any anti-virus to scan properly on my PC. I've tried for two days now. Every scan I run eventually crashes my PC and I have to reboot. The first one that was actually giving me results did not show any 'viruses' only a lot of spyware and those two hacker tools (which it will not remove for free--if you want it to remove anything other than a virus you have to pay for it).

I have spybot now scanning and it has already picked up a few things but I don't know if it will actually make it through the full scan to the part where it removes those things or not.

I did download and install Mcafee Security Center and left it to scan all night and all day today but it never finished and eventually my system crashed. It never said it found anything either.

I'm such an idiot when it comes to computers. After I get spybot to scan and remove what it can I'll try some of the other things mentioned here.

I just want to thank everyone again who's been so helpful.

[PlatyPius 5]

Do the Hijack This! before anything else. There's no point trying to install and uninstall a bunch of things if there's something nasty that won't let them run. post the results of the scan and I'll see what's causing it. If I can, I'll tell you how to fix it.

[Veiled Princess 1]

Do the Hijack This! before anything else. There's no point trying to install and uninstall a bunch of things if there's something nasty that won't let them run. post the results of the scan and I'll see what's causing it. If I can, I'll tell you how to fix it.

OK... it doesn't give any private information does it?

Email - for the love of Bob, use Opera or Thunderbird or Eudora! Anything but Outlook Express!

If you want to really know what's on your computer, run HijackThis! and post the results here.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

I don't use Outlook express because it started deleting everything in my inbox before it would even show the messages so I deleted that and I use Incredimail only because I paid for it a long time ago and so I can use it for free now. I don't know about any other free email programs and I don't like to read them online.

I'm running that 'hijack this' now.

[sharky 2]

Do the Hijack This! before anything else. There's no point trying to install and uninstall a bunch of things if there's something nasty that won't let them run. post the results of the scan and I'll see what's causing it. If I can, I'll tell you how to fix it.

OK... it doesn't give any private information does it?

Email - for the love of Bob, use Opera or Thunderbird or Eudora! Anything but Outlook Express!

If you want to really know what's on your computer, run HijackThis! and post the results here.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

I don't use Outlook express because it started deleting everything in my inbox before it would even show the messages so I deleted that and I use Incredimail only because I paid for it a long time ago and so I can use it for free now. I don't know about any other free email programs and I don't like to read them online.

Princess,

really sorry to hear about all the computer ####### you're going through at the mo., it must really suck! For what it's worth (and I'm no expert compared to some of the previous posters on this thread), I use Trend micro and it's the best anti-virus software that I know on the market. Stay clear of the Norton and Mcafee programs, they're #######. I must admit it sounds like you have a virus of some sorts, is your CPU memory full up???

it sounds like this may be why your comp keeps crashing or that it won't let any of the scanning programs complete??

I could be wrong though!

I'm running that 'hijack this' now.

[PlatyPius 5]

One of main issues with Incredimail, aside from it being "gross" (lol), is that it doesn't play well with anti-virus.

If you want a free, easy, SAFE email client, use thunderbird. I haven't had an email virus in 4 years, which is the time I switched to Mozilla/Thunderbird from Outlook2000.

I'm still looking through all of the processes and registry entries from the log file....

For those who are curious, she has ended up with Norton still running bits and pieces, Panda still running bits and pieces, and McAfee. Plus, it's a Dell. Plus there are about 43,405 things installed and running at all times. LOL This one is gonna take some work.

Considering the fact that there are now 2 partial and one full anti-virus programs on there, I'm afraid a complete wipe and re-install is looking like the only real option.

I'll post more later so everyone can keep updated.

Edited September 4, 2006 by Cian

[MichelleandCraig 1]

Thanks so much for the help with our, Cian. Haven't had another problem yet. We DO get the warning for low disk space now and again (heh) but it hasn't been a big problem. Really appreciate it!

Ok now, back to you. M.

[Veiled Princess 1]

Plus there are about 43,405 things installed and running at all times.

That might be a slight exaggeration

That long list is everything that runs at once??? It really is amazing it operates at all. No wonder it takes 15 minutes to come up

What's wrong with Dell????

I don't know how to do a complete wipe and reinstall.

I'm going to restart now.. Ad-aware just finished scanning and it picked up 11 more things. That's after the 105 things that Spybot removed already.

Avast is supposed to do a 'boot scan?' after I restart my PC.

[PlatyPius 5]

Aye. About half-way through boot-up (the blue windows screen), Avast will start scanning your computer. If it finds something, it will provide a list of choices. You can try to repair it, but I didn't have much luck with that (I "installed" a couple of infected files to test it). Failing that, you can move it to the virus vault (or whatever Avast calls it). The benefit of this is that it is scanning for viruses before the registry files and all that load. ie: if something is stopping you from running anti-virus, Avast will run BEFORE the nasty thing stops it.

Let us know how it goes.

[Veiled Princess 1]

It did get all the way thru the boot scan... it found some errors that I didn't understand about dll's and two files were infected with.... win32:adan-125 and win32:CTX... I deleted all. I hope this means it's fixed.

After installing and running all the programs recommend here I can say that my internet has never gone so fast I'm very pleased

I did PM you another 'hijackthis' log and I noticed myself that some Norton ####### is still there. I don't know how to get rid of things I don't need and I don't know why all that stuff wants to run all the time. I don't have all that stuff up at once. I don't even think I have all of that stuff installed on this laptop.

Thanks again for everyone's help!!! You guys rock!!!

[PlatyPius 5]

Well, I ran CrapCleaner. I checked what it was deleting carefully. Didn't matter. After I rebooted, I no longer had internet access, nor would any of my VBscripts that I had written work. I tried everything, even resorting to using system restore. At the moment, since nothing else has worked, I'm installing a new copy of XP on my laptop. Luckily, I wanted to upgrade from the original OS (XP Home) to XP Pro anyway. I missed having remote desktop.

So.....if you use CrapCleaner....BE CAREFUL!

[Veiled Princess 1]

Well, I ran CrapCleaner. I checked what it was deleting carefully. Didn't matter. After I rebooted, I no longer had internet access, nor would any of my VBscripts that I had written work. I tried everything, even resorting to using system restore. At the moment, since nothing else has worked, I'm installing a new copy of XP on my laptop. Luckily, I wanted to upgrade from the original OS (XP Home) to XP Pro anyway. I missed having remote desktop.

So.....if you use CrapCleaner....BE CAREFUL!

Yes my wireless connection is still messed up but it was messed up before crapcleaner. My PC is running much better now as a whole though.

Thanks again everyone!!