Lost my hardware profiles

self

[rudy45]

I have been having trouble with spyware, and (thanks to people here) have downloaded and run Spybot S and D. It seems to have cleaned things up.

Now, however, I have no hardware profiles. When I try to print, I am told I have no printers defined. When I use the "add printer" wizard, I get a message "operation cannot be completed."

Also, I have no wireless capability, because I have no icon in the system tray for it (the one with two connected computers).

Any help is appreciated. I am running XP Home.

Thanks.

[Old Lady]

Maybe you should start over and run the disk that erases everything, then reloads all your software -- I think it is called a recovery disk (?) It does not take very long -- half an hour or less, except then you have to set up your email etc again.

The whole thing sounds awful. I want to run something on my computer to get rid of spyware, but I am afraid of the scenerio you describe. Good luck.

[js1138]

Spyware removal can have nasty side effects. I suggest running Windows install in repair mode as a first choice.

[alchemist54]

you are going to have to format your hard drive and reload windows---you might be able to just reinstall windows letting the software overwrite itself.

[aft_lizard]

When in doubt re-install windows.

Actually before you reinstall windows got to your program menu->accesories-->system restore and try and see if rolling back to a previous time will help you.

[Dave S]

Doesnt Spybot make backups of the files it deletes in case you have to replace them. Check that out. If it does and you opted to create them, then restore those files and then try deleting the adware stuff one section at a time until you figure out what killed your system.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I've got a new Mac PowerBook running OS X 10.3.4 and, happy to report, don't have any of these problems! Now, if the Mac platform market share were to grow, the malevolent scum that writes spyware would create troubles over here, too.

I tried running spyware cleaners on my IBM PC at work and was so shocked by all the complexity that I decided to skip the cleaning process for fear of really screwing the system up.

[ShadowAce]

[Larry381]

Your printer should have come with software-re-install it.
Usually restarting the system will cause Windows to automatically reinstall most hardware devices. Not sure about the wireless device but I would guess it also came with an installation disk-if it did re-install it. Make sure you backup your new hardware profile.

[rudy45]

Thanks everyone. I ended up "biting the bullet" and reformatting and reinstalling XP. Along the way, I have switched from IE to Mozilla Firefox.

I'm thinking about using Eudora instead of OE. Any comments?

Thanks.