computer security help

[Rusty K]

tanlith,

I'm still here! I mistyped, my anti virus is EZ Antivirus (recommended at homerec.com) and I've been happy with it so far with auto updates daily.

I haven't been running a firewall and internet stuff still keeps appearing out of nowhere even with Adaware cleaning up a bunch of it. Actually I'm not sure that it's not the two security related freeware programs I've installed. I have a cookie manager as well. Maybe that change is screwing with my puter.

I'm waiting on a friend for advice on a tech here in town to troubleshoot this.

The place I purchased XP and had it loaded, said they could back everything but .exe files (does that make sense?). That would be a little hassle for me so I'd like to see if there is a fix without having to wipe and start over.

Rusty K

 

[tanlith]

Yeah... it makes sense

The thing with programs that are installed form CD is that they add .dll files to the Windows System32 folder and entries in the registry... in about 80-90% of problem systems it can be either of the two that's causing problems... and more often than not isn't worth the time to find the problem...

If you decide to reload the PC, tell the tech doing it that you want a seperate partition for your personal data files... then just change your My Documents icon to point to this instead... that way if something goes wrong again, you won't need to go through a lot to back stuff up. Just format the main partition; reload Windows then re-point MyDocs to the second partition and all your Data's there.

- Tanlith - - Site Updated!

 

[Rusty K]

tanlith,

Well I've been down for about 48hrs. I was starting the process to backup and reinstall when the computer began restarting itself about every 10 min.. I freaked and turned her off and called a tech.

Turns out I had a bad RAM stick (oldest one on the puter). He also ran his McAfee and found a Nachi worm. My anti virus had also found and deleted it but he said it's not unusual for it to reappear.

He also knew AdAware but preferred Spybot which he used and left on my puter. It found a bunch of stuff that Adaware did not find or at least had not found yet.

I think I'm good to go again.

He also said when I asked about periodically reinstalling my OS just for good measure, that he used to do that when he was running an OS pre XP but since XP he doesn't bother. He's been on his present install for 2 yrs. He worked for Dell for 4yrs. and seemed to be knowledgable about audio/video.

Anyway thanks for your help. I've saved some of your insights for reference when my next tech. crisis occurs.

Rusty K

PS. I have always received grest technical help here from many members so maybe the system/site is workings well as is but it still would be nice to see a forum like "Computer Problems". I'm never sure just where to post those kinds of threads.

Thanks

 

[tanlith]

Glad to be of help. Feel free to PM me if you ever run into something weird like that again...



- Tanlith -