Posted on 10/05/2004 6:42:05 AM PDT by rudy45
I am running XP home edition. Recently, I have experienced problems bringing up Internet Explorer.
When I click on the icon, the window appears, but it is slow in refreshing. My normal FR home page doesn't appear. Also, I get other IE windows that point to www.popuppers.com (even though I am using Panicware pop-up blocker). I try to close the individual windows, or close the group, but am unable to.
I am running Norton Internet Security 2005. It told me that I have spyware, but can't delete it. Could this spyware be causing the problem? Any help is appreciated.
I CAN get email, so I'm sure my Internet connection is good.
Thanks.
I recently downloaded the service pack 2 and have had nothing but problems since. The techies tell me that zonealarm pushed me down on the desk and held me while microsoft gave it to me hard and deep.
my wife will fix it but she's pretty busy right now.
If you can download this free program and maybe it can find your spyware.
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
In my office we are not touching service pack 2 till the IT people can do more testing on it; good enough for me, I'm not downloading it at home till they are happy with it at the office.
Some people haven't had any problem with the service pack others are screwed like me. Ive been running in safe mode with networking all week.
My wife says she's likely going to reformat all of our computers anyway. Right now shes gone for about 18 hours a day between work and school.
Sounds like your computer's been hi-jacked by malware. I'd say it would be worth at least a try of downloading ad-aware (by lavasoft) and spybot search and destroy, and then running them one after the other and see what they report and if your problem is solved. They're both free.
Also, I recommend you download firefox from mozilla.org- it may be that you can still use another browser without problems in the meantime (but I would try and fix whatever is wrong).
If its a bad malware infestation, you might have to download those programs on anthother computer and then transfer them over. Good luck. For the record, I'm not a computer expert (sounds like your wife might be), but those are good steps to take, anyway, for all computer users- and it might work. Again, good luck.
Sounds like you've got a ton of spyware and other malware on your system that are impeding performance.
Download and run free spyware removers like Spybot S&D and AdAware.
Once you've gotten rid of the Spyware, STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER. Try these other free, more secure browsers:
whoops, I confused someone else's wife as the computer expert. also, spyware is a form of malware. it sound like you have malware, b/c it's messing with your homepage settings and maliciously sending you web pages you didn't request. it's probably spyware, too, and trying to collect any personal info it can and send it to someone else. Try what I suggested, and I'll be you can get it fixed.
If you have installed SP2, you may need to uninstall it, then do the adaware and spybot S&D programs to fix your problems, then reinstall SP2.
Yes it is true. If you downloaded the service pak 2 it is causing your problem. We had to take our computer in for total repair. They had to totally take everything out and reinstall..Nightmare.
I've downloaded SP2 without any problems so far.
The reason I mentioned taking off SP2 in this situation is that I've read that if you have a spyware/malware infestation ongoing, then try and install SP2 on top of that, it can worse problems b/c of conflicts with your new firewall.
Overall, I really recommend having multiple browser software programs available to anyone who uses a computer.
One of the IT guys at work was telling me that he had one version of XP he was installing get probed and infected the first time he hooked up to the internet, while he was trying to download the security patches after a clean install.
I've run into several web pages at home on my Mac that try to install dialers and spyware. Since they're exe files they don't have any affect on my system, but I keep my beebers on full stune anytime I'm at a site I'm not familiar with, anyway.
Thanks, I downloaded Lavasoft and installed it. However, when I start the scan, I now get a message saying that my system will shut down in one minute, then it does, while the scan is going on. HOw can I stop the shutdown? Thanks.
1) XP is way, way better than 98, in my experience. with 98 I had about 1 crash per 4-6 hours of usage.
2) If your computer is shutting down during you ad-aware scan, I'd almost guarantee that you're infected with malware. You may need more expert help than I can offer; but here are some things to try-
3)on the ad-aware settings, make it do a scan on computer start-up, then restart your computer instead of going straight to doing a scan. Maybe your adaware can do its scanning b4 the malware is started up. On a related note, you could go into msconfig (Start to run, type in msconfig) and set your computer to safe mode, and try and run a scan from the safe mode. It may be that your current install of ad-aware has been compromised, and maybe you should reinstall it after doing the next step.
4) use spybot search and destroy. Crucial. Probably you should do this first. Spybot S&D might fix enough problems for Ad-Aware to begin working. If that's the case, alternate running one and then the other over and over until it looks like you're clean. Make sure you've updated both programs, and keep updating them over the next several weeks, b/c it may be that your malware is a new variant that can be mostly solved right now, but may leave some remnants that will only cleaned up with subsequent updates of those programs.
5) Look on the internet and find out what you might have and get some more details. Has your homepage been changed? Do a search on that home page, and go down lood for websites that talk about being hi-jacked to that website. Go back to your Norton scans that told you that you have spyware and write down specifically the details of what is says you might have, then go on the internet (using a different computer or Firefox) and search up info on that. If you try and use IE, while infected, it will be useless. You could also do some searching under "malware" or "spyware" and see if you can identify which program or type of program is doing the damage.
6) you could try and do a system restore to some point when you know your computer worked. (this might be a good starting point, but I'm not sure)
7) Post more details. It might allow someone to identify the malware you have. (For example, a common one changes your homepage to coolwebsearch.com)
8) Don't swear too much. Good luck- that'a about as much as I know, but I'll look forward to hearing updates on your progress and seeing what others might offer in the way of help.
Sounds a lot like CWS. Go to google and type in CWShredder. This is the only thing that will find it and kill it.
If you have one of those and are running XP....you're in a world of hurt.
Any luck? Or are you wondering how you're going to afford a new computer? Just thought I'd check back in with you.
Hi, thanks. I am a LITTLE better, I think. I now can get on IE (but will change to Mozilla I think). I downloaded Spybot S and D, and it found many things.
Now, however, I have another problem. My hardware profiles are gone, as well as my printer profiles. In other words, I cannot select a print from any application. If I attempt to use the "add a printer" wizard, I get a message "operation could not be completed."
Any ideas? Thanks.
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